80 



species makes its nest very commonly under stone-piles by the road-side. It is a 

 handsome and courageous insect ; and Nick Bottom the Weaver gave the fairy 

 Cobweb no light task when he bade him : 



Monsieur Cobweb : good monsieur, get your vreapons in your hand ; and kill me a red-hipped 

 humble-bee on the top of a thistle ; and good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. 



Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV., sc. 1. 



It is to be hoped that Oberon interposed in behalf of the bee, for 



Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing 

 Till he hath lost his honey and his sting ; 

 And being once subdued in armed tail 

 Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail. 



Ibid, Act v., sc. 2. 



Other passages in which bees are mentioned are The Tempest, Act I., sc. 2, 

 and Act V., sc. 1 ; Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III., sc. 1, Love's labour's lost, 

 Act III., sc. 1 ; All's well that ends well, Act lY., sc. 5 ; Comedy of Errors, Act 

 II., sc. 1 ; 2nd Part K. Henry VI., Act IV., sc. 2 ; Troilus and Cressida, Act I., sc. 

 3, Act II., sc. 2, and Act V., sc. 2 ; Cymbeline, Act III., sc. 2 ; and Titus Androni- 

 cus, Act IV., sc. 1. 



Shakespeare's allusions to the Wasp (Vespa vulgaris) convey the ideas of: 



(1) Petulance — Tempest, Act V., sc. 1 : 



Mar's hot minion is returned again 



Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows. 



See also Winter's Tale, Act I., sc. 2 ; 1st Part K. Henry IV., Act I., sc. 3 ; 

 and Julius Csesar, Act IV., sc., 3. 



(2) Injustice — Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I., sc. 2 : 



O hateful hands to tear such loving words 

 Injurious wasps ! to feed on such sweet honey. 

 And kill the bees that yield it, with your stings. 



(3) Vengeance — Titus Andronicus, Act II., sc. 3 : 



When you have the honey you desire 



Let not this wasp outlive, us both to sting. 



In the 3rd Part of K. Henry VI., Act II., sc. 6, it is said of the defeated 

 Lancastrians : 



For though they cannot greatly sting to hurt, 

 Yet kok to have them buz to offend thine ears. 



The commonest species of English ants is Formica rufa. This probably is the 

 species mentioned in 1st Part of K. Henry IV., Act I., sc. 3 by Hotspur : 



Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'd with rods, 

 Nettled and stung with pismires. 



Among the "skimble-skamble stuff" that angered Hotspur was Glendower's 

 talk of "the moldwarp and the ant" (lb. Act III., sc. 1). The ant also is men- 

 tioned in King Lear, Act II., sc. 4. 



Lepidopteea. — To butterflies there are but few references in Shakespeare, 

 but the few shew that the great dramatist had closely observed these beautiful 

 objects. He knew of their metamorphoses, and says : 



There is a difference between a grub and a butterfly, yet your butterfly was but a grub. 



Coriolanus, Act V., sc. 5. 



In his choice of an adjective to describe their wicgs he could not have found 

 a more appropriate word than he has in 



Men like butterflies 



Shew not their mealy wings, but to the summer. 



Troilus and Cressida, Aet III., sc. 3. 



