392 rooD of insects. 



aware that a host as numerous shun the glare of day, and, 

 like the votaries of fashion, rise not from their couch until 

 their more vulgar brethren have retired to rest. While 

 the painted butterfly, the "fervent bees," and the quiver- 

 ing nations of flies, which sport 



" Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways, 

 Upward and downward thwarting and convolved," 

 love to bask in the sun's brightest rays, and search for 

 their food amidst his noontide fervor, an immense multi- 

 tude stir not before the sober time of twilight, and eat 

 only when night has overshadowed the earth. Th^n only, 

 the vast tribe of moths quit their hiding-places ; "the shard- 

 born a beetle with his drowsy hum," accompanied by nu- 

 merous others of his order, sallies forth ; the airy Tipulae 

 institute their dances ; and the solitary spider stretches his 

 net. All these retire into concealment at the approach 

 of light. — Some few larvae (Noctua exclamationis, &c.) have 

 similar habits, and those of one singular genus before ad- 



a In the controversy between the commentators on Shakespeare, as 

 to whether shard* means wing-cases, dung, or a fragment of earthen- 

 ware, and whether born should be spelled with or without the e, it 

 might have thrown some weight into the scale of those who contend 

 for the orthography adopted above, and that the meaning of shard in 

 this place is dung, if they had been aware that the beetle (Scarabceiis 

 stercorarius) is actually born amongst dung, and no where else; and 

 that no beetle which makes a hum in flying can with propriety be said, 

 as Dr. Johnson has interpreted the epithet in his Dictionary, " to be 

 born amongst broken stones or pots." That Shakespeare alluded to 

 the Beetle, and not to the Cockchafer {Melolontha vulgaris)^ seems 

 clear from the fact of the former being to be heard in all places almost 

 every fine evening in the summer, while the latter is common only in 

 particular districts, and at one period of the year. S. 



* Sham is the common name of cow-dnng in the North : therefore 

 Shakespeare probably wrote sham-born. Mr. MarLeav. 



