INSECTS. 
215 
CATERPILLAR. CANKER. 
Proteas . Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud 
The eating canker dwells, so eating love 
Inhabits in the finest wits of all. 
Valentine . And writers say, as the most forward 
bud 
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, 
Even so by love the young and tender wit 
Is turn’d to folly; 
Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act i. Scene 1. 
Titania. Some, to kill cankers in the musk-rose 
buds ; 
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act ii. Scene 2. 
1st Servant. . . . the whole land, 
Is full of weeds; . . . . 
. . . her wholesome herbs 
Swarming with caterpillars ? 
King Richard II., Act. iii. Scene 4. 
Poins. O, that this good blossom could be kept 
from cankers ! 
King Henry IV., Part II. Act ii. Scene 2. 
York. Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud, 
And caterpillars eat my leaves away: 
King Henry VI., Part II. Act iii. Scene 1. 
Lysimachus. . . . a courtesy, 
Which if we should deny, the most just gods 
