WHIRLIGIGS. 95 



the glass slide, and one can have a good look at 

 him in the midst of his contortions. 



I wonder if such willow-galls have never been 

 used in augury, as have those of the oak. Gerard 

 in his old " Herbal " tells us that " the oke-apples 

 being broken in sunder about the time of their 

 withering doe foreshow the sequell of the yeare, 

 as the expert Kentish husbandmen have observed 

 by the living things found in them ; as, if they 

 finde an ant, they foretell plenty of graine to en- 

 sue ; if a white worm, like a gentill or a magot, 

 then they prognosticate murrain of beasts and 

 cat tell ; if a spider, then (say they), we shall have 

 a pestilence, or some such like sickenesse to follow 

 amongst men. These things the learned also 

 have observed and noted ; for Matthiolus, writing 

 upon Dioscorides, saith that, before they have an 

 hole through them, they containe in them either a 

 flie, a spider, or a worme : if a flie, then warre in- 

 sueth ; if a creeping worme, then scarcitie of vic- 

 tuals; if a running spider, then followeth great 

 sicknesse or mortalitie." 



On these willows, too, in June, I once found a 

 big, green, Sphinx caterpillar, the same shade as 

 the willows, just about a match. He had a spike 

 of a tail, after the manner of his race, and that 

 tail was gorgeous, being blue above and red be- 

 neath. He had eight little buttonholes of pink 

 spiracles on his sides, and was dotted all over with 

 fine white points. There was a well - developed 



