Chapter X: Part 10

To excel the Cicada in singing was the highest commendation of a singer, and the music of Plato’s eloquence was only comparable to the voice of this insect. Homer compared his good orators to the Cicadæ, “which, in the woods, sitting on a tree, send forth a delicate voice.”[873] But Virgil speaks of them as insects of a disagreeable and stridulous tone, and accuses them of bursting the very shrubs with their noise,--

Et cantu querulæ rumpent arbusta Cicadæ.[874]

Moufet says: “The Cicadæ, abounding in the end of spring, do foretel a sickly year to come, not that they are the cause of putrefaction in themselves, but only shew plenty of putrid matter to be, when there is such store of them appear. Oftentimes their coming and singing doth portend the happy state of things: so also says Theocritus. Niphus saith that what year but few of them are to be seen, they presage dearness of victuals, and scarcity of all things else....

“The Egyptians, by a Cicada painted, understood a priest and an holy man; the latter makers of hieroglyphics sometimes will have them to signifie musicians, sometimes pratlers or talkative companions, but very fondly. How ever the matter be, the Cicada hath sung very well of herself, in my judgement, in this following distich:

Although I am an insect very small,
Yet with great virtue am endow’d withall.”[875]

Sir G. Staunton, in his account of China, remarks: “The shops of Hai-tien, in addition to necessaries, abounded in toys and trifles, calculated to amuse the rich and idle of both sexes, even to cages containing insects, such as the noisy Cicada, and a large species of the Gryllus.”[876]

S. Wells Williams tells us that the Chinese boys often capture the male Cicada of their country, and tie a straw around the abdomen, so as to irritate the sounding apparatus, and carry it through the streets in this predicament, to the great annoyance of every one, for the stridulous sound of this insect is of deafening loudness.[877]

When in Quincy, Illinois, in the summer of 1864, I was shown by a boy a toy, which he called a “Locust,” with which he imitated the loud rattling noise of the _Cicada septemdecim_ with great accuracy. It consisted of a horse-hair tied to the end of a short stick, and looped in a cap of stiff writing-paper placed over the hole of a spool. To make the sound, then, the toy was whirled rapidly through the air, when the stiff paper acted as a sounding-board to the vibrating hair.

At Surinam, Madame Merian tells us, the noise of the _Cicada tibicen_ is still supposed to resemble the sound of a harp or lyre, and hence called the _Lierman_--the harper.[878] Another species, in Ceylon, which makes the forest re-echo with a long-sustained noise so curiously resembling that of a cutler’s wheel, has acquired the highly appropriate name of the _Knife-grinder_.[879]

It is said of our _Cicada septemdecim_, the so-called, but very improperly, “Seventeen-year Locust,” that, when they first leave the earth, when they are plump and full of juices, they have been made use of in the manufacture of soap.

The larva of a Chinese species of Cicada, the _Flata limbata_, which scarcely exceeds the domestic fly in size, forms a sort of grease, which adheres to the branches of trees and hardens into wax. In autumn the natives scrape this substance, which they call _Pela_, from off the trees, melt, purify, and form it into cakes. It is white and glossy in appearance, and, when mixed with oil, is used to make candles, and is said to be superior to the common wax for use. The physicians employ it in several diseases; and the Chinese, as we are informed by the Abbe Grosier, when they are about to speak in public, or when any occasion is likely to occur on which it may be necessary to have assurance and resolution, eat an ounce of it to prevent swoonings or palpitations of the heart.[880]

On the large cheese-like cakes of this wax, hanging in the grocers’ and tallow-chandlers’ shops at Hankow, are often seen the inscription written: “It mocks at the frost, and rivals the snow.” The price, in 1858, was forty dollars a picul, or about fifteen pence a pound.[881]

The Greeks, notwithstanding their veneration for the Cicada, made these insects an article of food, and accounted them delicious. Aristotle says, the larva, when it is grown in the earth, and become a tettigometra (pupa), is the sweetest; when changed to the tettix, the males at first have the best flavor, but after impregnation the females are preferred, on account of their white ova.[882] Athenæus and Aristophanes also mention their being eaten; and Ælian is extremely angry with the men of his age that an animal sacred to the Muses should be strung, sold, and greedily devoured.[883] The _Cicada septemdecim_, Mr. Collinson in 1763 said, was eaten by the Indians of America, who plucked off the wings and boiled them.[884]

Osbeck tells us that the _Cicada chinensis_, along with the _Buprestis maxima_, and several species of Butterflies, is made an article of commerce by the Chinese, being sold in their shops.[885]

Fulgoridæ--Lantern-flies.

The Lantern-fly, _Fulgora lanternaria_ of Linnæus, found in many parts of South America, is supposed to emit a vivid light from the large hood, or lantern, which projects from its body, and to be frequently serviceable to benighted travelers; hence the specific name, _lanternaria_. This story originated about a century and a half ago, from the work of the celebrated Madame Merian, who lived several years in Surinam. Her account contains the following anecdote: “The Indians once brought me, before I knew that they shone by night, a number of these Lantern-flies, which I shut up in a wooden box. In the night they made such a noise that I awoke in a fright, and ordered a light to be brought; not knowing whence the noise proceeded. As soon as we found that it came from the box, we opened it; but were still much more alarmed, and let it fall to the ground, in a fright at seeing a flame of fire come out of it; and as so many animals as came out, so many flames of fire appeared. When we found this to be the case, we recovered from our fright, and again collected the insects, highly admiring their splendid appearance.”[886]

Dr. Darwin, in a note to some lines relative to luminous insects, in his poem, the Loves of the Plants, makes Madame Merian affirm that she drew and finished her figure of the insect by its own light. This story is without foundation.

The Indians of South America say and believe that the Lyerman, _Cicada tibicen_, is changed into the Lantern-fly; and that the latter emits a light similar to that of a lantern.[887]

This story of the Lantern-fly being luminous is the more remarkable since the veracity of its author is unimpeached. She doubtless has confounded it with the _Cucujus_, _Elater noctilucus_. Donovan, however, states that the Chinese Lantern-fly, _Fulgora candelaria_, has an illuminated appearance in the night.[888]

From the loud noise the Lantern-fly makes at night, which is said to be somewhat between the grating of a razor-grinder and the clang of cymbals, it is called by the Dutch, in Guiana, _Scare-sleep_.[889] Ligon, in his History of Barbados, printed in 1673, probably refers to this insect, when he says: “They lye all day in holes and hollow trees, and as soon as the Sun is down they begin their tunes, which are neither singing nor crying, but the shrillest voyces that ever I heard; nothing can be so nearly resembled to it, as the mouths of a pack of small beagles at a distance.” This author, however, thought this sound by no means unpleasant. “So lively and chirping,” he continues, “the noise is, as nothing can be more delightful to the ears, if there were not too much of it, for the musick hath no intermission till morning, and then all is husht.”[890]

Aphidæ--Plant-lice.

The Aphides are remarkable for secreting a sweet, viscid fluid, known by the name of Honey-dew, the origin of which has puzzled the world for ages. Pliny says “it is either a certaine sweat of the skie, or some unctuous gellie proceeding from the starres, or rather a liquid purged from the aire when it purifyeth itself.”[891]

Amyntas, in his Stations of Asia, quoted by Athenæus, gives a curious account of the manner of collecting this article, which was supposed to be superior to the nectar of the Bee, in various parts of the East, particularly in Syria. In some cases they gathered the leaves of trees, chiefly of the linden and oak, for on these the dew was most abundantly found,[892] and pressed them together. Others allowed it to drop from the leaves and harden into globules, which, when desirous of using, they broke, and, having poured water on them in wooden bowls, drank the mixture. In the neighborhood of Mount Lebanon, Honey-dew was collected plentifully several times in the year, being caught by spreading skins under the trees, and shaking into them the liquid from the leaves. The Dew was then poured into vessels, and stored away for future use. On these occasions the peasants used to exclaim, “Zeus has been raining honey!”[893]

In the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times, we read: “_Galen_ saith, that there fell such great quantity of this Dew (in his time) in his Countrey of _Pergamus_, that the Countrey people (greatly delighted therein) gave thankes therefor to _Iupiter_. _Ælianus_ writeth also that there fell such plenty thereof in _India_, in the Region which is called _Prasia_, and so moistened the Grasse, that the Sheepe, Kine, and Goates feeding thereon, yeelded Milke sweete like Hony, which was very pleasing to drinke. And when they used that Milke in any disease, they needed not to put any Hony therein, to the end it should not corrupt in the stomacke: as it is appointed in Hecticke Feauers, Consumption, Tisickes, and for others that are ulcered in the intestines, as is confirmed by the Histories of _Portugall_.”[894]

The Aphides, like many other insects, sometimes migrate in clouds; and among other instances on record of these migrations, Mr. White informs us that about three o’clock in the afternoon of the first of August, 1785, the people of the village of Selborne were surprised by a shower of Aphides which fell in those parts. Persons who walked in the street at this time found themselves covered with them, and they settled in such numbers in the gardens and on the hedges as to blacken every leaf. Mr. White’s annuals were thus all discolored with them, and the stalks of a bed of onions were quite coated over for six days afterward. These swarms, he remarks, were then no doubt in a state of emigration, and might have come from the great hop-plantations of Kent and Sussex, the wind being all that day in the east. They were observed at the same time in great clouds about Farnham, and all along the vale from Farnham to Alton.[895] A similar emigration of these insects Mr. Kirby once witnessed, to his great annoyance, when traveling later in the year in the Isle of Ely. The air was so full of them, that they were incessantly flying into his eyes and nostrils, and his clothes were covered by them; and in 1814, in the autumn, the Aphides were so abundant for a few days in the vicinity of Ipswich, as to be noticed with surprise by the most incurious observers.[896] Neither Mr. White nor Mr. Kirby informs us what particular species formed these immense flights, but it is most probable they belonged to the Hop-fly, _Aphis humuli_.

Reaumur tells us that in the Levant, Persia, and China, they use the galls of a particular species of _Aphis_ for dyeing silk crimson.[897]

In England, the mischief caused by the Hop-fly, _Aphis humuli_, in some seasons, as in 1802, has brought the duty of hops down from £100,000 to £14,000.

A quite common, though erroneous, belief in England is, that Aphides are produced, or brought by, a northern or eastern wind. Thomson has fallen into the error; he has also confounded the mischief of caterpillars with that of the Aphis:

For oft, engendered by the hazy north,
Myriads on myriads insect armies warp,
Keen in the poison’d breeze, and wasteful eat
Through buds and bark into the blackened core
Their eager way. A feeble race! Yet oft
The sacred sons of vengeance, on whose course
Corrosive famine waits, and kills the year.

Coccidæ--Shield-lice.

The Kermes-dye, or scarlet, made from the _Coccus ilicis_ of Linnæus, an insect found chiefly on a species of oak, the _Quercus ilex_, in the Levant, France, Spain, and other parts of the world, was known in the East in the earliest ages, even before the time of Moses, and was a discovery of the Phœnicians in Palestine, who also first employed the murex and buccinum for the purpose of dyeing.

_Tola_ or _Thola_ was the ancient Phœnician name for this insect and dye, which was used by the Hebrews, and even by the Syrians; for it is employed by the Syrian translator.[898] Among the Jews, after their captivity, the Aramæan _zehori_ was more common. This dye was known also to the Egyptians in the time of Moses; and it is most probable that the color mentioned in Exodus[899] as one of the three which were prescribed for the curtains of the tabernacle, and for the “holy garments” of Aaron, and which the English translators have rendered by the word _scarlet_ (not the color now so called, which was not known in James the First’s reign when the Bible was translated), was no other than the blood-red color dyed from the _Coccus ilicis_.

The Arabs received the name _Kermes_ or _Alkermes_ for the insect and dye, from Armenia and Persia, where the insect was indigenous, and had long been known; and that name banished the old name in the East, as the name scarlet has in the West. For the first part of this assertion we must believe the Arabs. The Kermes, however, were not indigenous to Arabia, as the Arabs appear to have no name for them. To the Greeks this dye was known under the name of _Coccus_, as appears from Dioscorides, and other Greek writers.[900]

From the epithets _kermes_ and _coccus_, and that of _vermiculus_ or _vermiculum_, given to the Kermes in the middle ages, when they were ascertained to be insects, have sprung the Latin _coccineus_, the French _carmesin_, _carmine_, _cramoisi_ and _vermeil_, the Italian _chermisi_, _cremisino_, and _chermesino_, and our _crimson_ and _vermilion_.

The imperishable reds of the Brussels and other Flemish tapestries were derived from the Kermes; and, in short, previous to the discovery of cochineal, this was the material universally used for dyeing the most brilliant red then known. At the present time the Kermes are only gathered in Europe by the peasantry of the provinces in which they are found, but they still continue to be employed as of old in a great part of India and Persia.[901]

Brookes says the women gather the harvest of Kermes insects before sunrise, tearing them off with their nails; and, for fear there should be any loss from the hatching of the insects, they sprinkle them with vinegar. They then lay them in the sun to dry, where they acquire a red color.[902]

The scarlet grain of Poland, _Coccus polonicus_, found on the German knot-grass or perennial knawel (_Scleranthus perennis_), was at one time collected in large quantities in the Ukraine and other provinces of Poland (here under the name of _Czerwiec_), and also in the great duchy of Lithuania. But though much esteemed and still employed by the Turks and Armenians for dyeing wool, silk, and hair, as well as for staining the nails of women’s fingers, it is now rarely used in Europe except by the Polish peasantry. A similar neglect has attended the Coccus found on the roots of the Burnet (_Poterium sanguisorba_, Linn.), which was used, particularly by the Moors, for dyeing wool and silk a rose color; and the _Coccus uvæ-ursi_, which with alum affords a crimson dye.[903]

Cochineal, the _Coccus cacti_, is doubtless the most valuable product for which the dyer is indebted to insects, and with the exception perhaps of indigo, the most important of dyeing materials. It is found on a kind of fig, called in Mexico, where the insect is produced in any quantity, Nopal or Tuna, which generally has been supposed to be the _Cactus cochinilifer_, but according to Humboldt is unquestionably a distinct species, which bears fruit internally white.

Cochineal was discovered by the Spaniards, on their first arrival in Mexico, about the year 1518; but who first remarked this valuable production, and made it known in Europe, Mr. Beckman says, he has been unable to discover. Some assert that the native Mexicans, before the landing of Cortes, were acquainted with cochineal, which they employed in painting their houses and dyeing their clothes; but others maintain the contrary. Be that as it may, however, the Spanish ministry, as early as the year 1523, as Herrera informs us, ordered Cortes to take measures for multiplying this valuable commodity; and soon after it must have begun to be quite an object of commerce, for Guicciardini, who died in 1589, mentions it among the articles procured then by the merchants of Antwerp from Spain.

Professor Beckman, who has given the subject particular attention, thinks that with the first cochineal, a true account of the manner in which it was procured must have reached Europe, and become publicly known. Acosta in 1530, and Herrera in 1601, as well as Hernandez and others, gave so true and complete a description of it, that the Europeans could entertain no doubt respecting its origin. The information of these authors, however, continues this gentleman, was either overlooked or considered as false, and disputes arose whether cochineal was insects or worms, or the berries or seeds of certain plants. The Spanish name _grana_, confounded with _granum_, may have given rise to this contest.

Illustrative of this great difference of opinion, Mr. Beckman narrates the following anecdote: “A Dutchman, named Melchior de Ruusscher, affirmed in a society, from oral information he had received in Spain, that cochineal was small animals. Another person, whose name he has not made known, maintained the contrary with so much heat and violence, that the dispute at length ended in a bet. Ruusscher charged a Spaniard, one of his friends, who was going to Mexico, to procure for him in that country authentic proofs of what he had asserted. These proofs, legally confirmed in October, 1725, by the court of justice in the city of Antiquera, in the valley of Oaxaca, arrived at Amsterdam in the autumn of the year 1726. I have been informed that Ruusscher upon this got possession of the sum betted, which amounted to the whole property of the loser; but that, after keeping it a certain time, he again returned it, deducting only the expenses he had been at in procuring the evidence, and in causing it to be published. It formed a small octavo volume, with the following title printed in red letters: _The History of Cochineal proved by Authentic documents_. These proofs sent from New-Spain are written in Dutch, French, and Spanish.”[904]

Among the important discoveries made by accident, the following in the history of Cochineal may be instanced: “The well-known Cornelius Drebbel, who was born at Alcmaar, and died at London in 1634, having placed in his window an extract of Cochineal, made with boiling water, for the purpose of filling a thermometer, some aqua-regia dropped into it from a phial, broken by accident, which stood above it, and converted the purple dye into a most beautiful dark red. After some conjectures and experiments, he discovered that the tin by which the window frame was divided into squares had been dissolved by the aqua-regia, and was the cause of this change. He communicated his observation to Kuffelar, an ingenious dyer at Leyden. The latter brought the discovery to perfection, and employed it some years alone in his dye-house, which gave rise to the name of Kuffelar’s color.”[905]

That innocent cosmetic, so much used by the ladies, and commonly known by the French term Rouge, is no other than a preparation of Cochineal.[906]

Kermes-berries, _Coccus ilicis_, and Cochineal, _C. cacti_, Geoffroy says, “are esteemed to be greatly cordial and sudorific, being very full of volatile salt. They are given also to prevent abortion from any strain or hurt.”[907]

_Lac_ is the produce of an insect supposed by Amatus Lusitanus to be a kind of ant, and by others a bee, but now ascertained to be a species belonging to the Coccidæ--the _Coccus ficus_ or _C. lacca_. It is collected from various trees in India, where it is found so abundantly, that, were the consumption ten times greater than it is, it could be readily supplied.

Lac is known in Europe by the different appellations of _stick-lac_, when in its natural state, adhering to, and often completely surrounding, for five or six inches, the twigs on which it is produced by the insects contained in its cells; _seed-lac_, when broken into small pieces, garbled, and the greater part of the coloring matter extracted by water; when it appears in a granulated form; _lump-lac_, when melted and made into cakes; and _shell-lac_, when strained and formed into transparent laminæ.

Lac, in its different forms, is made use of in the manufacture of varnishes, japanned ware, sealing-wax, beads, rings, arm-bracelets, necklaces, water-proof hats, etc., etc. Mixed with fine sand it forms grindstones; and added to lamp or ivory black, being first dissolved in water with the addition of a little borax, it composes an ink not easily acted upon by dampness or water. It has been applied also to a still more important purpose, originally suggested by Dr. Roxburgh about the year 1790--that of a substitute for Cochineal in dyeing scarlet.[908] From this suggestion, under the direction of Dr. Bancroft, large quantities of a substance termed _lac-lake_, consisting of the coloring matter of stick-lac precipitated from an alkaline lixivium by alum, were manufactured at Calcutta and sent to England, where at first the consumption was so great, that, according to the statement of Dr. Bancroft, in 1806, and the two following years, the sales of it at the India House equaled in point of coloring matter half a million of pounds’ weight of Cochineal. Soon after this, a new preparation of lac color, under the name of _lac-dye_, was substituted for the lac-lake, and with such advantage, that in a few months £14,000 were saved by the East India Company in the purchase of scarlet cloths dyed with this color and Cochineal conjointly, and without any inferiority in the color obtained.[909]

The Coccidæ, although they furnish an invaluable dye and many articles of commerce, are among the most hurtful of insects in gardens and hot-houses. In 1843, the orange-trees of the Azores or Western Islands were nearly entirely destroyed by the _Coccus Hesperidum_; and in Fayal, an island which had usually exported twelve thousand chests of oranges annually, not one was exported.[910]

ORDER VIII.

HETEROPTERA.

Cimicidæ--Bed-bugs.

“In the year 1503,” says Moufet, “Dr. Penny was called in great haste to a little village, called Mortlake, near the Thames, to visit two noble ladies (_duas nobiles_), who were much frightened by the appearance of bug-bites (_ex cinicum vestigiis_), and were in fear of I know not what contagion; but when the matter was known, and the insects caught, he laughed them out of all fear.”[911]

This fact disproves the statement of Southall, that the _Cimex lectularius_ was not known in England before 1670, and that of Linnæus, and the generality of later writers, that this insect is not originally a native of Europe, but was introduced into England after the great fire of London in 1666, having been brought in timber from America.

The original English names of the _C. lectularius_, were _Chinche_, _Wall-louse_, and _Punaise_ (from the French); and the term _Bug_, which is a Celtic word, signifying a ghost or goblin, was applied to them after the time of Ray,[912] most probably because they were considered as “terrors of the night.”[913]

In the Nicholson’s Journal[914] there is mention of a man who, far from disliking Bed-bugs, took them under his protecting care, and would never suffer them to be disturbed, or his bedsteads removed, till in the end they swarmed to an incredible degree, crawling up even the walls of his drawing-room; and after his death millions were found in his bed and chamber furniture.

Gemelli, in 1695, visited the Banian hospital at Surat, and says that what amazed him most, though he went there for that express purpose, was to see “a poor wretch, naked, bound down hands and feet, to feed the Bugs or Punaises, brought out of their stinking holes for that purpose.”[915]

Mr. Forbes, speaking of this remarkable institution for animals, says: “At my visit, the hospital contained horses, mules, oxen, sheep, goats, monkeys, poultry, pigeons, and a variety of birds. The most extraordinary ward was that appropriated to rats and mice, Bugs, and other noxious vermin. The overseers of the hospital frequently hire beggars from the streets, for a stipulated sum, to pass a night among the Fleas, Lice, and Bugs, on the express condition of suffering them to enjoy their feast without molestation.”[916]

Navarette says that a species of Bugs (most probably a _Cimex_), which swarm in some parts of China, are a source of great amusement to the natives; for they take particular delight in killing them with their fingers, and then clapping them to their noses.[917]

Democritus says that the feet of a hare, or of a stag, hung round the feet of the bed at the bottom of the couch, does not suffer Bugs to breed; but, in traveling, Didymus adds, if you fill a vessel with cold water and set it under the bed, they will not touch you when you are asleep.[918]

A superstition prevails among us that beds, in order to rid them effectually of Bugs, must be cleaned during the dark of the moon.

The medicinal virtues of the Cimex are given by Pliny (doubtless quoting Dioscorides, ii. 36) as follows: “The Bug is said to be a neutralizer of the venom of serpents, asps in particular, and to be a preservative against all kinds of poisons. As a proof of this, they tell us that the sting of an asp is never fatal to poultry, if they have eaten Bugs that day; and that, if such is the case, their flesh is remarkably beneficial to persons who have been stung by serpents. Of the various recipes given in reference to these insects, the least revolting are the application of them externally to the wound, with the blood of a tortoise; the employment of them as a fumigation to make leeches loose their hold; and the administering of them to animals in drink when a leech has been accidentally swallowed. Some persons, however, go so far as to crush Bugs with salt and woman’s milk, and anoint the eyes with the mixture; in combination, too, with honey and oil of roses, they use them as an injection for the ears. Field-bugs, again, and those found upon the mallow (perhaps the _Cimex pratensis_ is meant here; neither this nor the _Cimex juniperinus_, the _C. brassicæ_, or the _Lygæus hyoscami_, has the offensive smell of the _C. lectularius_) are burnt, and the ashes mixed with oil of roses as an injection for the ears.

“As to the other remedial virtues attributed to Bugs for the cure of vomiting, quartan fevers, and other diseases, although we find recommendations given to swallow them in an egg, some wax, or in a bean,[919] I look upon them as utterly unfounded, and not worthy of further notice. They are employed, however, for the treatment of lethargy, and with some fair reason, as they successfully neutralize the narcotic effects of the poison of the asp; for this purpose seven of them are administered in a cyathus of water; but in the case of children, only four. In cases, too, of strangury they have been injected into the urinary channel.[920] So true it is that nature, that universal parent, has engendered nothing without some powerful reason or other. In addition to these particulars, a couple of Bugs, it is said, attached to the left arm in some wool that has been stolen from the shepherds, will effectually cure nocturnal fevers; while those recurrent in the daytime may be treated with equal success by inclosing the Bugs in a piece of russet-colored cloth.”[921]

Guettard, a French commentator on Pliny, recommends Bugs to be taken internally for hysteria; and Dr. James says “the smell of them relieves under hysterical suffocations!”[922]

At the present time the Bed-bug is sometimes given by the country people of Ohio as a cure for the fever and ague.

Moufet says: “The verses of Quintus Serenus show that they are good for tertian agues:

Shame not to drink three Wall-lice mixt with wine,
And garlick bruised together at noon-day.
Moreover a bruised Wall-louse with an egg, repine
Not for to take, ’tis loathsome, yet full good I say.

“Gesner in his writings confirms this experiment, having made trial of it among the common and meaner sort of people in the country. The ancients gave seven to those that were taken with a lethargy, in a cup of water, and four to children. Pliny and Serenus consent to this in these verses:

Some men prescribe seven Wall-lice for to drink,
Mingled with water, and one cup they think
Is better than with drowsy death to sink.”[923]

Anatolius says that if an ox, or other quadruped, swallows a leech in drinking, having pounded some Bugs, let the animal smell them, and he immediately throws up the leech.[924]

Mr. Mayhew, in his work on the London poor and their labor, has an interesting chapter devoted to the Destroyers of Vermin, from which we have taken the liberty of quoting pretty largely in the course of this work. His statements can be relied on, and we give them as nearly in his own words as possible. Concerning Bugs and Fleas, and the trade carried on in the manufacture and vending of poisons to destroy these pests, we learn from him: The vending of bug-poison in the London streets is seldom followed as a regular source of living. He has met with persons who remembered to have seen men selling packets of vermin poison; but to find out the venders themselves was next to an impossibility. The men seem to take merely to the business as a living when all other sources have failed. All, however, agree in acknowledging that there is such a street trade; but that the living it affords is so precarious that few men stop at it longer than two or three weeks.

The most eminent firm, perhaps, of the bug-destroyers in London now is that of Messrs. Tiffin and Son. They have pursued their calling in the streets, but now rejoice in the title of “Bug-Destroyers to Her Majesty and the Royal Family.”

Mr. Tiffin, the senior party in this house, kindly obliged Mr. Mayhew with the following statement. It may be as well to say that Mr. Tiffin appears to have paid much attention to the subject of Bugs, and has studied with much earnestness the natural history of this vermin. He said:

“We can trace our business back as far as 1695, when one of our ancestors first turned his attention to the destruction of bugs. He was a lady’s stay-maker--men used to make them in those days, though, as far back as that is concerned, it was a man that made my mother’s dresses. This ancestor found some bugs in his house--a young colony of them, that had introduced themselves without his permission, and he didn’t like their company, so he tried to turn them out of doors again, I have heard it said, in various ways. It is in history, and it has been handed down in my own family as well, that bugs were first introduced into England, after the fire in London, in the timber that was brought for the rebuilding of the city, thirty years after the fire, and it was about that time that my ancestor first discovered the colony of bugs in his house. I can’t say whether he studied the subject of bug-destroying, or whether he found out his stuff by accident, but he certainly _did_ invent a compound which completely destroyed the bugs, and, having been so successful in his own house, he named it to some of his customers who were similarly plagued, and that was the commencement of the present connection, which has continued up to this time.

“At the time of the illumination for the Peace, I thought I must have something over my shop, that would be both suitable for the event and to my business; so I had a transparency done, and stretched on a big frame, and lit up by gas, on which was written

MAY THE
DESTROYERS OF PEACE
BE DESTROYED BY US.
TIFFIN & SON,
BUG-DESTROYERS TO HER MAJESTY.

“Our business was formerly carried on in the Strand, where both my father and myself were born; in fact, I may say I was born to the bug business.

“I remember my father as well as possible; indeed, I worked with him for ten or eleven years. He used, when I was a boy, to go out to his work killing bugs at his customers’ houses with a sword by his side and a cocked-hat and bag-wig on his head--in fact, dressed up like a regular dandy. I remember my grandmother, too, when she was in the business, going to the different houses, and seating herself in a chair, and telling the men what they were to do, to clean the furniture and wash the woodwork.

“I have customers in our books for whom our house has worked these 150 years; that is, my father and self have worked for them and their fathers. We do the work by contract, examining the house every year. It’s a precaution to keep the place comfortable. You see, servants are apt to bring bugs in their boxes; and, though there may be only two or three bugs perhaps hidden in the woodwork and the clothes, yet they soon breed if let alone.

“We generally go in the spring, before the bugs lay their eggs; or, if that time passes, it ought to be done before June, before their eggs are hatched, though it’s never too late to get rid of a nuisance.

“I mostly find the bugs in the bedsteads. But, if they are left unmolested, they get numerous and climb to the tops of the rooms, and about the corners of the ceilings. They colonize anywhere they can, though they’re very high-minded and prefer lofty places. Where iron bedsteads are used, the bugs are more in the _rooms_, and that’s why such things are bad. They don’t keep a bug away from a person sleeping. Bugs’ll come if they’re thirty yards off.

“I knew a case of a bug who used to come every night about thirty or forty feet--it was an immense large room--from the corner of the room to visit an old lady. There was only one bug, and he’d been there for a long time. I was sent for to find him out. It took me a long time to catch him. In that instance I had to examine every part of the room, and when I got him I gave him an extra nip to serve him out. The reason why I was so bothered was, the bug had hidden itself near the window, the last place I should have thought of looking for him, for a bug never, by choice, faces the light; but when I came to inquire about it, I found that this old lady never rose till three o’clock in the day, and the window-curtains were always drawn, so that there was no light like.

“Lord! yes, I am often sent for to catch a single bug. I’ve had to go many, many miles--even 100 or 200--into the country, and perhaps only catch half a dozen bugs after all; but then that’s all that are there, so it answers our employer’s purpose as well as if they were swarming.

“I work for the upper classes only; that is, for carriage-company and such like approaching it, you know. I have noblemen’s names, the first in England, on my books.

“My work is more method; and I may call it a scientific treating of the bugs rather than wholesale murder. We don’t care about the thousands, it’s the last bug we look for, whilst your carpenters and upholsterers leave as many behind them, perhaps, as they manage to catch.

“The bite of the bug is very curious. They bite all persons the same (?); but the difference of effect lies in the constitutions of the parties. I’ve never noticed that a different kind of skin makes any difference in being bitten. Whether the skin is moist or dry, it don’t matter. Wherever bugs are, the person sleeping in the bed is sure to be fed on, whether they are marked or not; and as a proof, when nobody has slept in the bed for some time, the bugs become quite flat; and, on the contrary, when the bed is always occupied, they are round as a lady-bird.

“The flat bug is more ravenous, though even he will allow you time to go to sleep before he begins with you; or at least till he thinks you ought to be asleep. When they find all quiet, not even a light in the room will prevent their biting; but they are seldom or never found under the bedclothes. They like a clear ground to get off, and generally bite round the edges of the nightcap or the nightdress. When they are found _in_ the bed, it’s because the parties have been tossing about, and have curled the sheets round the bugs.

“The finest and fattest bugs I ever saw were those I found in a black man’s bed. He was the favorite servant of an Indian general. He didn’t want his bed done by me; he didn’t want it touched. His bed was full of ’em, no beehive was ever fuller. The walls and all were the same, there wasn’t a patch that was not crammed with them. He must have taken them all over the house wherever he went.

“I’ve known persons to be laid up for months through bug-bites. There was a very handsome fair young lady I knew once, and she was much bitten about the arms, and neck, and face, so that her eyes were so swelled up she couldn’t see. The spots rose up like blisters, the same as if stung with a nettle, only on a very large scale. The bites were very much inflamed, and after a time they had the appearance of boils.

“Some people fancy, and it is historically recorded, that the bug smells because it has no vent; but this is fabulous, for they _have_ a vent. It is not the human blood neither that makes them smell, because a young bug who has never touched a drop will smell. They breathe, I believe, through their sides; but I can’t answer for that, though it’s not through the head. They haven’t got a mouth, but they insert into the skin the point of a tube, which is quite as fine as a hair, through which they draw up the blood. I have many a time put a bug on the back of my hand, to see how they bite; though I never felt the bite but once, and then I suppose the bug had pitched upon a very tender part, for it was a sharp prick, something like that of a leech-bite.

“I once had a case of lice-killing, for my process will answer as well for them as for bugs, though it’s a thing I never should follow by choice. Lice seem to harbor pretty much the same as bugs do. I find them in the furniture. It was a nurse that brought them into the house, though she was as nice and clean a looking woman as ever I saw. I should almost imagine the lice must have been in her, for they say there is a disease of that kind; and if the tics breed in sheep, why should not lice breed in us? for we’re but live matter, too. I didn’t like myself at all for two or three days after that lice-killing job, I can assure you; it’s the only case of the kind I ever had, and I can promise you it shall be the last.

“I was once at work on the Princess Charlotte’s own bedstead. I was in the room, and she asked me if I had found anything, and I told her no; but just at that minute I _did_ happen to catch one, and upon that she sprang up on the bed, and put her head on my shoulder, to look at it. She had been tormented by the creature, because I was ordered to come directly, and that was the only one I found. When the Princess saw it, she said, ‘Oh, the nasty thing! That’s what tormented me last night; don’t let him escape.’ I think he looked all the better for having tasted royal blood.

“I also profess to kill beetles, though you never can destroy them so effectually as you can bugs; for, you see, beetles run from one house to another, and you can never perfectly get rid of them; you can only keep them under. Beetles will scrape their way and make their road round a fire-place, but how they go from one house to another I can’t say, but they _do_.

“I never had patience enough to try and kill Fleas by my process; it would be too much of a chivey to please me.

“I never heard of any but one man who seriously went to work selling bug-poison in the streets. I was told by some persons that he was selling a first-rate thing, and I spent several days to find him out. But, after all, his secret proved to be nothing at all. It was train-oil, linseed and hempseed, crushed up all together, and the bugs were to eat it till they burst.

“After all, secrets for bug-poisons ain’t worth much, for all depends upon the application of them. For instance, it is often the case that I am sent for to find out one bug in a room large enough for a school. I’ve discovered it when the creature had been three or four months there, as I could tell by his having changed his jacket so often, for bugs shed their skins, you know. No, there was no reason that he should have bred; it might have been a single gentleman or an old maid.

“A married couple of bugs will lay from forty to fifty eggs at one laying. The eggs are oval, and are each as large as the thirty-second part of an inch; and when together are in the shape of a caraway comfit, and of a bluish-white color. They’ll lay this quantity of eggs three times in a season. The young ones are hatched direct from the egg, and, like young partridges, will often carry the broken eggs about with them, clinging to their back. They get their fore-quarters out, and then they run about before the other legs are completely cleared.

“As soon as the bugs are born they are of a cream color, and will take to blood directly; indeed, if they don’t get it in two or three days, they die; but after one feed they will live a considerable time without a second meal. I have known old bugs to be frozen over in a horse-pond--when the furniture had been thrown in the water--and there they have remained for a good three weeks; still, after they have got a little bit warm in the sun’s rays, they have returned to life again.

“I myself kept bugs for five years and a half without food, and a housekeeper at Lord H----’s informed me that an old bedstead that I was then moving from a store-room was taken down forty-five years ago, and had not been used since, but the bugs in it were still numerous, though as thin as living skeletons. They couldn’t have lived upon the sap of the wood, it being worm-eaten and dry as a bone. A bug will live for a number of years, and we find that when bugs are put away in old furniture without food, they don’t increase in number; so that, according to my belief, the bugs I just mentioned must have existed forty-five years: besides, they were large ones, and very dark colored, which is another proof of age.

“It is a dangerous thing for bugs when they are shedding their skins, which they do about four times in the course of a year; when they throw off their hard shell and have a soft coat, so that the least touch will kill them; whereas at other times they will take a strong pressure. I have plenty of bug-skins, which I keep by me as curiosities, of all sizes and colors, and sometimes I have found the young bugs collected inside the old ones’ skins for warmth, as if they had put on their father’s great-coat. There are white bugs--albinoes you may call ’em--freaks of nature like.”[925]

Notonectidæ--Water-boatmen.

Humboldt mentions that he saw insects’ eggs sold in the markets of Mexico, which were collected on the surface of lakes. Under the name of _Axayacat_, these eggs, or those of some other species of fly, deposited on rush mats, are sold as a caviare in Mexico. Rev. Thomas Smith, who makes the same statement, also says the Mexicans likewise eat the flies themselves, ground and made up with saltpetre. Something similar to these eggs, found in the pools of the desert of Fezzan, serves the Arabs for food, having the taste of caviare.

In the Bulletin de la Société Impériale Zoologique d’Acclimation, M. Guerin Méneville has published a paper on a sort of bread which the Mexicans make of the eggs of three species of heteropterous insects.

According to M. Craveri, by whom some of the Mexican bread, and of the insects yielding it, were brought to Europe, these insects and their eggs are very common in the fresh waters of the lagunes of Mexico. The natives cultivate, in the lagune of Chalco, a sort of carex called touté, on which the insects readily deposit their eggs. Numerous bundles of these plants are made, which are taken to a lagune, the Texcuco, where they float in great numbers in the water. The insects soon come and deposit their eggs on the plants, and in about a month the bundles are removed from the water, dried, and then beaten over a large cloth to separate the myriad of eggs with which the insects have covered them. These eggs are then cleaned and sifted, put into sacks like flour, and sold to the people for making a sort of cake or biscuit called “hautlé,” which forms a tolerably good food, but has a fishy taste, and is slightly acid. The bundles of carex are replaced in the lake, and afford a fresh supply of eggs, which process may be repeated for an indefinite number of times.

It appears that these insects have been used from an early period, for Thomas Gage, a religionist, who sailed to Mexico in 1625, says, in speaking of articles sold in the markets, that they had cakes made of a sort of scum collected from the lakes of Mexico, and that this was also sold in other towns.

Brantz Mayer, in his Mexico as it was and as it is, 1844, says: “On the lake of Texcuco I saw men occupied in collecting the eggs of flies from the surface of plants, and cloths arranged in long rows as places of resort for the insects. These eggs, called _agayacath_, formed a favorite food of the Indians long before the conquest; and when made into cakes, resemble the roe of fish, having a similar taste and appearance. After the use of frogs in France, and birds’-nests in China, I think these eggs may be considered a delicacy, and I found that they are not rejected from the tables of the fashionable inhabitants of the capital.”

The more recent observations of MM. Saussure, Sallé, Virlet d’Aoust, etc. have confirmed the facts already stated, at least in the most essential particulars.

“The insects which principally produce this animal farinha of Mexico,” says a writer in the Journal de Pharmacie, “are two species of the genus _Corixa_ of Geoffroy, hemipterous (heteropterous) insects of the family of water-bugs. One of the species has been described by M. Guerin Méneville as new, and has been named by him _Corixa femorata_: the other, identified in 1831 by Thomas Say as one of those sold in the market at Mexico, bears the name of _Corixa mercenaria_. The eggs of these two species are attached in innumerable quantities to the triangular leaves of the carex forming the bundles which are deposited in the waters. They are of an oval form with a protuberance at one end and a pedicle at the other extremity, by means of which they are fixed to a small round disk, which the mother cements to the leaf. Among these eggs, which are grouped closely together, there are found others, which are larger, of a long and cylindrical form, and which are fixed to the same leaves. These belong to another larger insect, a species of _Notonecta_, which M. Guerin Méneville has named _Notonecta unifasciata_.”

It appears from M. Virlet d’Aoust, that in October the lakes of Chalco and Texcuco, which border on the City of Mexico, are haunted by millions of “small flies,” which, after dancing in the air, plunge down into the water, to the depth of several feet, and deposit their eggs at the bottom.

“The eggs of these insects are called hautle (haoutle) by the Mexican Indians, who collect them in great numbers, and with whom they appear to be a favorite article of food. They are prepared in various ways, but usually made into cakes, which are eaten with a sauce flavored with chillies.”[926]

Rev. Thomas Smith enumerates the following insects as eaten by the ancient Mexicans: The _Atelepitz_, “a marsh beetle, resembling in shape and size the flying beetles, having four (?) feet, and covered with a hard shell.” The _Atopinan_, “a marsh grasshopper of a dark color and great size, being no less than six inches long and two broad.”(!) The _Ahuihuitla_, “a worm which inhabits the Mexican lakes, four inches long, and of the thickness of a goose quill, of a tawny color on the upper part of the body, and white upon the under part; it stings with its tail, which is hard and poisonous.” And the _Ocuiliztac_, “a black marsh worm, which becomes white on being roasted.”[927]

ORDER IX.

DIPTERA.

Culicidæ--Gnats.[928]

Concerning the generation of Gnats, Moufet says: “Countrey people suppose them, and that not improbably, to be procreated from some corrupt moisture of the earth.”[929]

A battle of Gnats (probably an appearance of Ephemera) is recorded in Stow’s Chronicles of England, p. 509, to have been fought in the reign of King Richard II.: “A fighting among Gnats at the King’s maner of _Shine_, where they were so thicke gathered, that the aire was darkened with them: they fought and made a great battaile. Two partes of them being slayne, fel downe to the grounde; the thirde parte hauing got the victorie, flew away, no man knew whither. The number of the deade was such that they might be swept uppe with besomes, and bushels filled weyth them.”[930]