[80] No one knew Reaumur's Abeille Tapissiere until Latreille, happily combining system with attention to the economy of insects, proved it to be a new species—his Megachile Papaveris.—Hist. de Fourmis, 297.
[81] Bibliothek. vii. 310.
[82] Tour on the Continent, iii. 150.
[83] Shakespear's intention however in this passage was evidently not, as is often supposed, to excite compassion for the insect, but to prove that
The sense of Death is most in apprehension,
the actual pang being trifling. Measure for Measure, Act iii. Scene 1.
[84] Dr. Smith's Tour, i. 162. Journ. de Phys. xxv. 336.
[85] "Cœnis etiam non vocatus ut Musca advolo." Aristophon in Pythagorista apud Athenæum. (Mouffet, 56.)
[86] Gentils, or gentles, is a synonymous word employed by our old authors, but is now obsolete, except with anglers. Thus Tusser, in a passage pointed out to me by Sir Joseph Banks:—
"Rewerd not thy sheep when ye take off his cote
With twitches and patches as brode as a grote;
Let not such ungentlenesse happen to thine,
Least fly with her gentils do make it to pine."