saith) is white, neither the tarantula or
Neapolitan spider, whose poison bringeth death, except music be at
hand. Wherefore I suppose our country to be the more happy (I mean in
part) for that it is void of these two grievous annoyances wherewith
other nations are plagued.
We have also efts both of the land and water, and likewise the noisome
swifts, whereof to say any more it would be but loss of time, sith
they are all well known, and no region to my knowledge found to be
void of many of them. As for flies (sith it shall not be amiss a
little to touch them also), we have none that can do hurt or hindrance
naturally unto any: for whether they be cut-waisted or whole-bodied,
they are void of poison and all venomous inclination. The cut or girt
waisted (for so I English the word _insecta_) are the hornets, wasps,
bees, and such like, whereof we have great store, and of which an
opinion is conceived that the first do breed of the corruption of dead
horses, the second of pears and apples corrupted, and the last of kine
and oxen: which may be true, especially the first and latter in some
parts of the beast, and not their whole substances, as also in the
second, sith we have never wasps but when our fruit beginneth to wax
ripe. Indeed Virgil and others speak of a generation of bees by
killing or smothering a bruised bullock or calf and laying his bowels
or his flesh wrapped up in his hide in a close house for a certain
season; but how true it is, hitherto I have not tried. Yet sure I am
of this, that no one living creature corrupteth without the production
of another, as we may see by ourselves, whose flesh doth alter into
lice, and also in sheep for excessive numbers of flesh flies, if they
be suffered to lie unburied or uneaten by the dogs and swine, who
often and happily present such needless generations.
As concerning bees, I think it good to remember that, whereas some
ancient writers affirm it to be a commodity wanting in our island, it
is now found to be nothing so. In old times peradventure we had none
indeed; but in my days there is such plenty of them in manner
everywhere that in some uplandish towns there are one hundred or two
hundred hives of them, although the said hives are not so huge as
those of the east country, but far less, and not able to contain above
one bushel of corn or five pecks at the most. Pliny (a man that of set
purpose delighteth to write of wonders), speaking of honey, noteth
that in th
|