Gossamer, as it is called, being the fine web of certain species of spiders, floating in the air in abundance, and lodging on the trees, or the rigging of ships, and on other objects, affords a sign of fine settled weather in autumn, as does the much covering of the ground and herbage by the woof of the spiders in general.

In crossing the Channel from Calais to Dover, I have observed that the captains of the vessels have sometimes forboded fine settled weather from the settling on the masts and rigging, of certain sort of web, which we take to be the woof of some spider, though we have observed it to alight on the ships when some way out at sea.

Thomas Furly Forster, The Pocket Encyclopaedia of Natural Phenomena, published 1827