We cherish none in trees, but set our hives somewhere on
the warmest side of the house, providing that they may stand dry and
without danger both of the mouse and the moth. This furthermore is to
be noted, that whereas in vessels of oil that which is nearest the top
is counted the finest and of wine that in the middest, so of honey the
best which is heaviest and moistest is always next the bottom, and
evermore casteth and driveth his dregs upward toward the very top,
contrary to the nature of other liquid substances, whose grounds and
leeze do generally settle downwards. And thus much as by the way of
our bees and English honey.
As for the whole-bodied, as the _cantharides_, and such venomous
creatures of the same kind, to be abundantly found in other countries,
we hear not of them: yet have we beetles, horseflies, turdbugs or dors
(called in Latin _scarabei_), the locust or the grasshopper (which to
me do seem to be one thing, as I will anon declare), and such like,
whereof let other intreat that make an exercise in catching of flies,
but a far greater sport in offering them to spiders, as did Domitian
sometime, and another prince yet living who delighted so much to see
the jolly combats betwixt a stout fly and an old spider that divers
men have had great rewards given them for their painful provision of
flies made only for this purpose.
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