in offering them to spiders, as did Domitian
sometime, and another prince yet living who delighted so much to see
the jolly combats betwixt a stout fly and an old spider that divers
men have had great rewards given them for their painful provision of
flies made only for this purpose. Some parasites also, in the time of
the aforesaid emperor (when they were disposed to laugh at his folly,
and yet would seem in appearance to gratify his fantastical head with
some shew of dutiful demeanour), could devise to set their lord on
work by letting a flesh fly privily into his chamber, which he
forthwith would eagerly have hunted (all other business set apart) and
never ceased till he had caught her into his fingers, wherewith arose
the proverb, "_Ne musca quidem_" uttered first by Vibius Priscus, who
being asked whether anybody was with Domitian, answered "_Ne musca
quidem_" whereby he noted his folly. There are some cockscombs here
and there in England, learning it abroad as men transregionate, which
make account also of this pastime, as of a notable matter, telling
what a sight is seen between them, if either of them be lusty and
courageous in his kind. One also hath made a book of the spider and
the fly, wherein he dealeth so profoundly, and beyond all measure of
skill that neither he himself that made it nor any one that readeth it
can reach unto the meaning thereof. But if those jolly fellows,
instead of the straw that they must thrust into the fly's tail (a
great injury no doubt to such a noble champion), would bestow the cost
to set a fool's cap upon their own heads, then might they with more
security and less reprehension behold these notable battles.

Now, as concerning the locust, I am led by divers of my country, who
(as they say) were either in Germany, Italy, or Pannonia, 1542, when
those nations were greatly annoyed with that kind of fly, and affirm
very constantly that they saw none other creature than the grasshopper
during the time of that annoyance, which was said to come to them from
the Meotides. In most of our translations also of the Bible the word
_locusta_ is Englished a grasshopper, and thereunto (Leviticus xi.) it
is reputed among the clean food, otherwise John the Baptist would
never have lived with them in the wilderness. In Barbary, Numidia, and
sundry other places of Africa, as they have been,[6] so are they eaten
to this day powdered in barrels, and therefore the people of those
parts are called _A