“The seventeene of March, 1586,” says John Stow in his Annales of England, “a strange thing happened, the like whereof before hath not beene heard of in our time. Master Dorington, of Spaldwicke, in the countie of Huntington, esquier, one of his maiesties gentlemen Pensioners, had a horse which died sodainly, and, being ripped to see the cause of his death, there was found in the hole of the hart of the same horse a strange worme, which lay on a round heape in a kall or skin of the likeness of a toade, which, being taken out and spread abroad, was in forme and fashion not easie to be described, the length of which worme divided into many greines to the number of fiftie (spread from the bodie like the branches of a tree), was from the snowte to the ende of the longest greine, seventeene inches, having four issues in the greines, from the which dropped foorth a red water; the body in bignes round about was three inches and a halfe, the colour whereof was very like a makerel. This monstrous worme, found in manner aforesaid, crauling to have got away, was stabbed in with a dagger and died, which, after being dried, was shewed to many honorable persons of the realme.”[1252] Dr. Sparrman, in his journey to Paarl, an inland town at the Cape of Good Hope, having filled his insect-box with fine specimens, was obliged to put a “whole regiment of flies and other insects” round the brim of his hat. Having entered the house of a rich old widow troubled with the gout, for food, he was warned by his servant that if she should happen to see the insects he would certainly be turned out of doors for a conjuror (hexmeester). Accordingly he was very careful to keep his hat always turned away from her, but all would not do--the old lady discovered the “little beasts,” and to her greater astonishment that they were run through their bodies with pins. An immediate explanation was demanded; and had the doctor not been just then lamenting with the widow for her deceased husband, and giving dissertations on the dropsy and cough that carried off the poor man, the explanation he gave would hardly have been sufficient to quell the rage of this superstitious boor at the thought of there being a sorcerer in her house.[1253]