87 
In Troilus and Cressida, Act V., sc. 2, is a reference to Arachne. Arachne, 
according to the ancients, was the daughter of Idmon, a Lydian. She was a 
skilful spinner, and contended with Pallas. Defeated and: chagrined, she hanged 
herself, and was turned into a spider. 
In King John, Act IV., se. 3, Hubert suspected of murdering Prince Arthur, 
is told that 
The smallest thread, 
That ever spider twisted from her womb, 
Will serve to strangle thee. 
Other passages referring to spiders may be found in Midsummer Night’s 
Dream, Act IT., se.3; King Richard II., Act III., se. 2; King Richard IIL, Act 
I., se. 2, and Act II., sc. 4; Cymbeline, Act IV., sc. 2; King Lear, Act IV., se. 6; 
Romeo and Juliet, Act I. se. 4, and Act IT., se. 6. 
Scorpions are spoken of in Macbeth, Act III, sc. 4; 2nd Part of K. Henry 
VI., Act III., sc. 2; and Cymbeline, Act V., se. 5 
It is evident that Shakespeare, in his walks around Stratford and on the 
pleasant banks of Avon, had found food for reflection in the appearances and habits 
of the commoner insect tribes. His were the observing eye and the contempla- 
tive mind; and with marvellous power he turned the knowledge of insect-life that 
he acquired to account, for the instruction and amusement of the men of his own 
day, and of after generations. He was one who could find 
Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 
And we are happy in that he has, in so many instances, interpreted these 
tongues, translated these books, written down the sermons and pointed out the 
good for us. 
ENEMIES OF THE GRAIN APHIS.—Prof. H. Garman, Entomologist and Botan- 
ist of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station, in a paper on the grain 
louse (Siphonophora avenz) has the following to say about its natural enemies : 
The helplessness of plant lice makes them the prey of many predaceous and 
parasitic insects. A visit to infested wheat fields in June showed great numbers 
of these present among the lice. Undoubtedly the injury to grain was 
very much lessened by the work of these friends of ours, yet, as we have shown, 
lice still exist in the fields, and they are liable again to assume destructive 
numbers. 
Chief among the enemies of the grain louse are certain small, dark-coloured, 
four-winged flies, which belong to the same order as the common honey bee. 
These little flies deposit their eggs in the bodies of the plant lice, placing a single 
egg in each louse, and from the eggs come small grubs which live in the interior “of 
their host, finally emerging after its death as ega-laying flies. Grain lice infested 
with these grubs become swollen, assume a brown colour, and by some means are 
fastened to the plants, where they remain as empty skins after the parasite 
emerges. 
Small two-winged flies, about five-sixteenths of an inch long, with brassy 
brown thorax, and with the abdomen striped crosswise with black and yellow, 
also do good service in destroying the lice. They scatter their eggs among the 
colonies, and from these hatch greenish larvee, which destroy the lice by seizing 
them and sucking their juices. 
The lady bugs in both larval and adult stages devour the lice bodily. Several 
species of these beetles were common in the fields, but the most conspicuous from 
