THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 81 



or flowers ; and others, from a dew left upon coleworts or 

 cabbages : all which kinds of dews being thickened and con- 

 densed, are by the sun's generative heat most of them hatched, 

 and in three days made living creatures : and these of several 

 shapes and colours; some being hard and tough, some smooth 

 and soft ; some are horned in their head, some in their tail, 

 some have none ; some have hair, some none ; some have 

 sixteen feet, some less, and some have none ; but as our 

 Topsel* hath with great diligence observed, those which have 

 none move upon the earth, or upon broad leaves, their motion 

 being not unlike to the waves of the sea. Some of them, he 

 also observes, to be bred of the eggs of other caterpillars, and 

 that those in their time, turn to be butterflies ; and again, 

 that their eggs turn the following year to be caterpillars. And 

 some affirm that every plant has his particular fly or cater- 

 pillar, which it breeds and feeds. I have seen, and may 

 therefore affirm it, a green caterpillar or worm, as big as a 

 small peascod, which had fourteen legs, eight on the belly, 

 four under the neck, and two near the tail. It was found 

 on a hedge of privet, and was taken thence and put into a 

 large box, and a little branch or two of privet put to it, on 

 which I saw it feed as sharply as a dog gnaws a bone ; it 

 lived thus five or six days, and thrived and changed the 

 colour two or three times ; but, by some neglect in the 

 keeper of it, it then died, and did not turn to a fly : but if it 

 had lived, it had doubtless turned to one of those flies that 

 some call flies of prey, which those that walk by the rivers. 

 may, in summer, see fasten on smaller flies, and, I think, 

 make them their food. And 'tis observable, that as there be 

 these flies of prey, which be very large, so there be others, 

 very little, created, I think, only to feed them, and breed out 

 of I know not what ; whose life, they say, nature intended 

 not to exceed an hour : and yet that life is thus made shorter 

 by other flies, or by accident. 



It is needless to tell you what the curious searchers into 

 nature's productions have observed of these worms and flies : 

 but yet I shall tell you what Aldrovandus,t our Topsel, and 

 others, say of the palmer-worm, or caterpillar, that whereas 

 others content themselves to feed on particular herbs or leaves, 



* In his " History of Serpents." 



t Ulysses Aldrovandus, a great physician and naturalist of Bologna ; he 

 wrote a hundred and twenty books on several subjects, and a treatise De 

 Tiscibus, published at Frankfort, 1G40. H. 



F 



