78 The Book of Bugs. 



has it, " Thou shalt not be afearde for any Bugge by 

 night," and though Shakspere uses the word " bug " six 

 times, it is always in the sense of something fearsome. 



Many changes were taking piace in those golden days 

 of good Queen Bess. For one thing, men were not, as 

 before, believing everything that was told them. The 

 awesome thing (bug) that came in the night (ho in} was 

 found to be but " humbug," which is what the occult will 

 be found to be whenever you get a good look at it by 

 daylight. They are all " bogus." Yes, Mrs. Piper, too. 

 She is born, but she is not buried yet. Some day it will 

 all come out. You'll see. 



Another change was that England was trading with 

 Southern countries and bringing back many things 

 hitherto unknown sugar and spices, and in the same 

 ships, though not on the bill of lading, troublesome pests 

 that lay hid in the crannies of the wall by day and 

 trooped into the beds when darkness fell. They were an 

 old song to the Italians, but new and fearsome to our 

 English ancestors, truly terrors by night. There was no 

 English word for them, but the rationalizing spirit of the 

 age, with that verse of the 91 st Psalm in mind, made a 

 good joke and a good name at one blow. 



But what a come-down! For a word that had once 

 been the synonym for the highest existence man can 

 conceive, to sink down through the occult, the feared, the 

 distrusted, the false, and the lying until it scraped on the 

 bottom mud as the synonym for the most loathed and 

 despised of living things ! There is a lesson in this. 



In modern entomology the word bug has been taken 

 for the especial description of such insects as have their 

 beaks formed for piercing and their stomachs acting as 

 automatic pumps. They are blood-suckers, as are all 

 that trade in the supernatural. They do an incalculable 



