"As slippery as an eel," "as flat as a flounder," "as dead as a herring," "as round as a roach," are other well-used similes. "As thirsty as a fish," "as busy as a bee," "as blind as a bat," "as spiteful as a toad," are also in common use. The spitefulness of the toad arose from an old belief in his venomous nature and his promptitude in spitting poison on those who molested him. We also hear, "as merry as a cricket" or "as a grig." It has been conjectured that this latter should be, "as a Greek," and in support of this the Shakespearean passage, "Then she's a merry Greek," may be brought forward, and others of like tenor might be cited. "As blind as a beetle" doubtless arose from the way that some species have of blundering into the wayfarer in the dusk of the evening. The common dor-beetle, the cockchafer, the stag-beetle, and others supply us with illustrations of this. Sir Thomas Brown, in his interesting book on "Vulgar Errours," writes: "Slow worms are accounted blind, and the like we affirm proverbially of the beetle: although their eyes be evident." Udall writes: "Proude Ierusalem deserued not to haue this pre-eminence, which, albeit she were in every dede as blynde as a betell, yet thought herselfe to haue a perfect good syght, and for that cause was more vncurable"; while in the "Mirror for Magistrates" we find: "Say not the people well, that Fortune fauours fooles? So well they say, I thinke, which name her beetle-blind." To compare a man out of his element to a fish out of water is a well-worn and familiar simile. Chaucer writes that "A monk whan he is cloysterless is likned till a Fissh that is watreles." This illustration of the unhappy condition of the monk outside his cloister is found not uncommonly, the earliest perhaps being in a Greek "Life of St Anthony," that is certainly not later than the year 373. Wyclif, for instance, writes: "For as they seyn that groundiden in these cloystris thes men myghten no more dwelle out therof than fiss mighte dwelle out of water." Some fish, as the tench, are much more tenacious of life when removed from their native element than others, and the saying that we have already quoted, "as dead as a herring," originated from the fact that this fish is in a marked degree unable to survive a very short removal from the sea.