428 The Animal-Lore of Shalcsjoeare’s Time. 
Du Bartas (p. 46) falls into the error of transforming 
the silkworm into a fly:— 
“ Yet may I not that little worm pass by, 
Of fly turn’d worm, and of a worm a fly: 
Two births, 2 deaths, heer nature hath assign’d her, 
Leaving a post-hume (dead-live) seed behind her, 
Which soon transforms the fresh and tender leaves 
Of Thisbes pale tree, to those slender sheaves 
(On ovall clews) of soft, smooth, silken flakes, 
Which more for us, than for her self, she makes. 
0 precious fleece! which onely did adorn 
The sacred loyns of princes heretoforn: 
But our proud age, with pro digall abuse, 
Hath so profan’d th’ old honourable use, 
That shifters now, who scarce have bread to eat. 
Disdain plain silk, unless it he beset 
With one of those deer metals, whose desire 
Burns greedy soules with an immortall fire.” 
“ The Spider,” says Guillim prettily, “ is born free of 
the weaver’s company.” Batman writes:— 
Spider. 
“ The spinner is a little creeping beast with many 
feet and hath alwaye feet even, and not odde, and among beasts of 
rounde bodyes the spinner hath best feeling of touch.” 
Quoting Aristotle, he says that spiders are of many 
kinds, some small and of divers colours, sharp and swift 
of moving, some black in colour, whose hind legs are 
longer than the rest. He here refers to the hunting- 
species. After his discourse on spiders, drawn entirely 
from classical sources, he concludes his remarks with a 
most uncomplimentary suggestion:— 
“ Besides this large discourse of spiders, it hath beene reported, 
that in Ireland be many spiders, and some verye great, and that being 
eaten of the Irishmen, have not performed any shewe of venime: it 
may be that the greater poyson subdueth the lesse.” (Batman wppon 
Bartholomew 1582, p. 347.) 
Some foreign species of spiders are mentioned by 
travellers. In an account of the West Indies written to 
Dharles Y. of Spain, 1525, Oviedo remarks:— 
