Shakspeare a Naturalist, 309 



Wasps and other Insects, A Subscriber, Vale of Alford, in - 

 p. 265., confirms my remarks on wasps, in p. 197. Perhaps 

 Mr. Bree will allow me to make use of his observations, in 

 p. 262., as illustrative of my position, although he may not be 

 inclined to accept that as a solution of his enquiry. 



A writer in the Hereford Jourfial (May, 1834) says that 

 insects have wonderfully increased in that county this season. 

 He mentions cockchafers especially; and says, that at Cal- 

 dicott and BuUingham, two fields, with the gates, &c., were 

 covered by a black caterpillar, with white spots on the side 

 of the body. They were collected in heaps and burned. This 

 corresponds with what is mentioned of the years 1762 and 

 1782, at p. 197. The gout in wheat is also very common at 

 this time in Dorsetshire, a complaint known to be the effect 

 of insects.— ^. B. C, 



\_Wasps. (p. 265.) — I observed the same abundance to pre- 

 vail, in the same season (the summer of 1833), in all places in 

 the neighbourhood of London. — James Fennell, Templey 

 May, 1834. 



'M.elolontha vulgaris, (p. 247.) — In 1833 I observed only 

 one, and could not help noting its general scarcity about 

 London. — Id, 



Locusts in France, in 1833. (p. 196.) — They have appeared 

 in such swarms in some departments in the west of France, 

 and have become so destructive to vegetation, that the council 

 general of the Sarthe have assigned a sum of 6,000 francs for 

 the destruction of them, at the rate of ten sous a bushel. 

 {Sun, May 23. 1833.) — /^.] 



Art. II. Shakspeare a Naturalist, By S. H. 



** He was an exact surveyor of the inanimate world ; his descriptions 

 have always some peculiarities, gathered by contemplating things as they 

 really exist." — Johnson's Preface to Shakspeare* s Plays, 



If it be possible to add a charm to the pursuit of natural 

 history, I think it would be done by associating it with the 

 study of poetry, to which it seems so strongly allied, that 

 one might be surprised how it ever got separated, did one 

 not consider how many men there are whose whole wish and 

 endeavour seem to be to render knowledge unpopular and 

 exclusive, and to make harsh and crabbed " what is musical 

 as Apollo's lute." Every lover of nature, that is of the fields, 

 the woods, the rocks, the mountains, and the things that are 

 therein, must, necessarily, be of a poetical temperament, for in 



X 3 



