[568] "Insects Mentioned by Shakespeare," 1841, p. 181.
_Bots._ Our ancestors imagined that poverty or improper food engendered these worms, or that they were the offspring of putrefaction. In "1 Henry IV." (ii. 1), one of the carriers says: "Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots." And one of the misfortunes of the miserable nag of Petruchio ("Taming of the Shrew," iii. 2), is that he is so "begnawn with the bots."
_Cricket._ The presence of crickets in a house has generally been regarded as a good omen, and said to prognosticate cheerfulness and plenty. Thus, Poins, in answer to the Prince's question in "1 Henry IV." (ii. 4), "Shall we be merry?" replies, "As merry as crickets." By many of our poets the cricket has been connected with cheerfulness and mirth. Thus, in Milton, "Il Penseroso" desires to be
"Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth."
It has not always, however, been regarded in the same light, for Gay, in his "Pastoral Dirge," among the rural prognostications of death, gives the following:
"And shrilling crickets in the chimney cry'd."
And in Dryden's "OEdipus" occurs the subjoined:
"Owls, ravens, crickets, seem the watch of death."
Lady Macbeth, also ("Macbeth," ii. 2), in replying to the question of her husband after the murder of Duncan, says:
"I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry."
In "Cymbeline" (ii. 2), also, when Iachimo, at midnight, commences his survey of the chamber where Imogen lies sleeping, his first words refer to the chirping of crickets, rendered all the more audible by the repose which at that moment prevailed throughout the palace:
"The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense Repairs itself by rest."
Gilbert White, in his "History of Selborne" (1853, p. 174), remarks that "it is the housewife's barometer, foretelling her when it will rain; and is prognostic, sometimes, she thinks, of ill or good luck, of the death of a near relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being the constant companion of her solitary home, it naturally becomes the object of her superstition."[569]
[569] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol. iii. pp. 190, 191.
Its supposed keen sense of hearing is referred to in the "Winter's Tale" (ii. 1) by Mamillius, who, on being asked by Hermione to tell a tale, replies: