ZOOLOGY IN TIME OF SHAKESPEARE 259 



effect on plants he well knew. Further, he dis- 

 tinguished between the sun-loving butterflies and 

 the moths which as a rule fly by night, and between 

 the dance of gnats in bright sunshine and their 

 retirement to sheltered spots when the sun goes in. 



Shakespeare understood a maggot. His know- 

 ledge of the bee and its habits, as shown by the 

 phrase " thighs packed with wax," and by the 

 wonderful, though in detail inaccurate, speech 

 of Canterbury (" Hen. V.," I. ii. 187) about the 

 bees who " teach the act of order to a peopled 

 kingdom/* was the expression of centuries of 

 observation from pre-classical times onwards. 

 We must never forget that our ancestors had 

 no cane-sugar, no beet-sugar, no saccharine. 



Although Shakespeare seems to distinguish 

 between the spider's poison, which is in some few 

 genera harmful if injected into the blood and 

 harmless when swallowed, it is hardly probable 

 that he or any one in his epoch had considered 

 this physiological difference. Spiders and their 

 webs and threads were of course used as constant 

 illustrations, but only one born and bred in the 

 country would put into the mouth of Thersites 

 " I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a 

 valiant ignorance " (" Troilus," III. iii. 315). The 



