DIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 213 



A pure seed pearl of infant dew, 



Brought and besweeten'd in a blue 



And pregnant violet; which done, 



His killing eyes begin to run 



Quite through the table, where he spies 



The horns of papery butterflies, 



Of which he eats, and tastes a little 



Of what we call the cuckoo's spittle ; # 



A little furze-ball pudding stands 



By, yet not blessed by his hands, 



That was too coarse ; but then forthwith 



He ventures boldly on the pith 



Of sugar'd rush, and eats the sag 



And well be-strutted bee's sweet bag; 



Gladding his palate with some store 



Of emmet's eggs : what would he more ? 



But beards of mice, a newt's stew'd thigh, 



A bloated earwig and a fly ; 



With the red-capp'd worm that's shut 



Within the concav^e of a nut, 



Brown as his tooth ; a little moth 



Late faiten'd in a piece of cloth, 



With wither'd cherries, mandrakes' ears, 



Moles' eyes ; to these the slain stag's tears ; 



The unctuous dewlaps of a snail ; 



The broke heart of a nightingale 



O'ercome in music ; 



This done, commended 



Grace by his priest, the feast is ended. — 



Having considered insects as adding to the general stock of food, I 

 shall next request your attention while I detail to you how far the medical 

 science is indebted to them. Had I addressed you a century ago, I could 

 have made this an ample history. Amongst scores of infallible panaceas, 

 I should have recommended the wood-louse as a solvent and aperient : 

 powder of silk- worm for vertigo and convulsions ; millepedes against the 

 jaundice ; earwigs to strengthen the nerves ; powdered scorpion for the 

 stone and gravel ; fly-water for disorders in the eyes ; and the tick for 

 erysipelas. I should have prescribed five gnats as an excellent purge ; 

 wasps as diuretics ; lady-birds for the colic and measels ; the cock-chafer 

 for the bite of a mad dog and the plague ; and ants and their acid I 

 should have loudly praised as incomparable against leprosy and deafness, 

 as strengthening the memory, and giving vigor and animation to the whole 

 bodily frame. ^ In short, I could have easily added to the mlserably 

 meager list of modern pharmacopoeias, a catalogue of approved insect- 

 remedies for every disease and evil 



" that flesh is heir to ! " 

 But these good times are long gone by. You would, I fear, laugh at my 

 prescriptions notwithstanding the great authorities I could cite in their 

 favor ; and even doubt the efficacy of a more modern specific for tooth- 

 ache, promulgated by a learned Italian professor^, who assures us that a 

 finger once imbued with the juices of Rhinohatus antiodontalgicus (a 

 name enough to give one the toothache to pronounce it) will retain its 

 power of curing this disease for a twelvemonth ! I must content myself, 

 therefore, with expatiating on the virtues of the very few insects to which 



' For this list of remedies, see Lesser, L. ii. 171 — 173. • 



* Gerbi. Storia Naturali d'un Nitov. Inset. 1794. The same virtues have been ascribed 

 to Couinella septempuactata, L. 



