87 



In Troilus and Cressida, Act V., sc. 2, is a reference to Arachne. Arachne, 

 according to the ancients, was the daughter of Idmon, a Lydian. She was a 

 skilful spinner, and contended with Pallas. Defeated and chagrined, she hanged 

 herself, and was turned into a spider. 



In King John, Act IV., sc. 3, Hubert suspected of murdering Prince Arthur, 

 is told that 



The smallest thread, 

 That ever spider twisted from her womb, 

 Vv ill serve to strangle thee. 



Other passages referring to spiders may be found in Midsummer Night's 

 Dream, Act II., sc. 3 ; King Richard II., Act III., sc. 2 ; King Richard III., Act 

 I., sc. 2, and Act IL, sc. 4; Oymbeline, Act IV., sc. 2 ; King Lear, Act lY., sc. 6 ; 

 Romeo and Juliet, Act I. sc. 4, and Act II., sc. 6. 



Scorpions are spoken of in Macbeth, Act III., sc. 4 ; 2nd Part of K. Henry 

 VI., Act III., sc. 2 ; and Oymbeline, Act V., sc. 5. 



It is evident that Shakespeare, in his walks around Stratford and on the 

 pleasant banks of Avon, had found food for reflection in the appearances and habits 

 of the commoner insect tribes. His were the observing eye and the contempla- 

 tive mind ; and with marvellous power he turned the knowledge of insect-life that 

 he acquired to account, for the instruction and amusement of the men of his own 

 day, and of after generations. He was one who could find 



Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 

 Sermons in stones, and good in everything. 



And we are happy in that he has, in so many instances, interpreted these 

 tongues, translated these books, written down the sermons and pointed out the 

 good for us. 



Enemies of the Grain Aphis. — Prof. H. Garman, Entomologist and Botan- 

 ist of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station, in a paper on the grain 

 louse (Siphonophora avense) has the following to say about its natural enemies : 



The helplessness of plant lice makes them the prey of many predaceous and 

 parasitic insects. A visit to infested wheat fields in June showed great numbers 

 of these present among the lice. Undoubtedly the injury to grain was 

 very much lessened by the work of these friends of ours, yet, as we have shown, 

 lice still exist in the fields, and they are liable again to assume destructive 

 numbers. 



Chief among the enemies of the grain louse are certain small, dark-coloured, 

 four-winged flies, which belong to the same order as the common honey bee. 

 These little flies deposit their eggs in the bodies of the plant lice, placing a single 

 ■egg in each louse, and from the eggs come small grubs which live in the interior of 

 their host, finally emerging after its death as egg-laying flies. Grain lice infested 

 with these grubs become swollen, assume a brown colour, and by some means are 

 fastened to the plants, where they remain as empty skins after the parasite 

 emerges. 



Small two-winged flies, about five-sixteenths of an inch long, with brassy 

 brown thorax, and with the abdomen striped crosswise with black and yellow, 

 also do good service in destroying the lice. They scatter their eggs among the 

 colonies, and from these hatch greenish larvae, which destroy the lice by seizing 

 them and sucking their juices. 



The lad}^ bugs in both larval and adult stages devour the lice bodily. Several 

 species of these beetles were common in the fields, but the most conspicuous from 



