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. Some
parasites also, in the time of the aforesaid emperor (when they were
disposed to laugh at his folly, and yet would seem in appearance to
gratify his fantastical head with some shew of dutiful demeanour), could
devise to set their lord on work by letting a flesh fly privily into his
chamber, which he forthwith would eagerly have hunted (all other business
set apart) and never ceased till he had caught her into his fingers,
wherewith arose the proverb, "_Ne musca quidem_," uttered first by Vibius
Priscus, who being asked whether anybody was with Domitian, answered "_Ne
musca quidem_," whereby he noted his folly. There are some cockscombs here
and there in England, learning it abroad as men transregionate, which make
account also of this pastime, as of a notable matter, telling what a sight
is seen between them, if either of them be lusty and courageous in his
kind. One also hath made a book of the spider and the fly, wherein he
dealeth so profoundly, and beyond all measure of skill that neither he
himself that made it nor any one that readeth it can reach unto the
meaning thereof. But if those jolly fellows, instead of the straw that
they must thrust into the fly's tail (a great injury no doubt to such a
noble champion), would bestow the cost to set a fool's cap upon their own
heads, then might they with more security and less reprehension behold
these notable battles.

Now, as concerning the locust, I am led by divers of my country, who (as
they say) were either in Germany, Italy, or Pannonia, 1542, when those
nations were greatly annoyed with that kind of fly, and affirm very
constantly that they saw none other creature than the grasshopper during
the time of that annoyance, which was said to come to them from the
Meotides. In most of our translations also of the Bible the word _locusta_
is Englished a grasshopper, and