34 SHAKESPEARE’S [ BEETLE. 
Beetle. 
The poor beetle that we tread upon, 
In corporal sufferance, finds a pang as great 
As when a giant dies. 
Measure For Measure, iii. I, 79-81. 
The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums, 
Hath rung night’s yawning peal. 
f MacseTH, ili. 2, 42-3. 
BEETLES are often produced from the putrid flesh of 
horses. They are hung round the necks of infants for their 
cure. The nature of the green Beetle sharpens the sight 
of those who behold it, and therefore carvers of jewels take 
pleasure in the sight of it. 
Hortus Sanitatis, part. iii, (“Of Birds”), ch. evi. 
(translated), 
Tue Beetle is bred of putrid things and of dung, and it 
chiefly feeds and delights in that. Of all plants they 
cannot away with rose-trees, for they die by the smell of 
them. They have no females, but have their generation 
from the sun. Though the eagle, its proud and cruel 
enemy, do make havoc and devour this creature of so 
mean a rank, yet as soon as it gets an opportunity it 
returneth like for like. For it flieth up nimbly into her 
nest with its fellow-soldiers the scarab-beetles, and in the 
absence of the old she-eagle bringeth out of the nest the 
eagle’s eggs one after another, which, falling and being 
broken, the young ones are deprived of life. 
Mouffet, “'Theatre of Insects,” pp. 1005-13. 
Bell-wether. VY. Wether. 
A jealous rotten bell-wether. 
Merry Wives or Winpsor, iii. 5, III. 
Benedictus (Carduus). 
Marc. Get you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus, and lay it 
to your heart; it is the only thing for a qualm, 
Hero, There thou prickest her with a thistle. 
Beat. Benedictus! why Benedictus? You have some moral in this 
Benedictus. 
Marc. Moral! ne, by my troth, I have no moral meaning ; I meant 
plain Holy thistle, i 
Mucnu Apo asour Noruine, iii. 4, 73-80, 
