Chapter VIII: Part 8

Many Apiarians contend that newly-settled countries are most favorable to the Bee; and an old German adage runs thus:

Bells’ ding dong,
And choral song,
Deter the bee
From industry:

But hoot of owl,
And “wolf’s long howl”
Incite to moil
And steady toil.[686]

Hector St. John, in his Letters, gives the following curious account of the method which he employed in discovering Bees in our woods in early times: Provided with a blanket, some provisions, wax, vermilion, honey, and a small pocket compass, he proceeded to such woods as were at a considerable distance from the settlements. Then examining if they abounded with large trees, he kindled a small fire on some flat stones, close by which putting some wax, and, on another stone near by, dropping distinct drops of honey, which he encircled with the vermilion. He then retired to carefully watch if any Bees appeared. The smell of the burnt wax, if there were any Bees in the neighborhood, would unavoidably attract them; and, finding the honey, would necessarily become tinged with the vermilion, in attempting to get at it. Next, fixing his compass, he found out the direction of the hives by the flight of the loaded Bees, which is invariably straight when they are returning home. Then timing with his watch the absence of the Bee till it would come back for a second load, and recognizing it by the vermilion, he could generally guess pretty closely to the distance traversed by it in the given time. Knowing then the direction and the probable distance, he seldom failed in going directly to the right tree. In this way he sometimes found as many as eleven swarms in one season.[687]

The shepherds of the Alps, as we learn from Sausure quoted in the Insect Miscellanies, as soon as the snows are melted on the sides of the mountains, transfer their flocks from the valleys below to the fresh pasture revived by the summer sun, in the natural parterres and patches of meadow-land formed at the foot of crumbling rocks, and sheltered by them from mountain storms; and so difficult sometimes is this transfer to be accomplished, that the sheep have to be slung by means of ropes from one cliff to another before they can be stationed on the little grass-plot above.[688] A similar artificial migration (if we may use the term), continues the author of the Miscellanies, is effected in some countries by the proprietors of Beehives, who remove them from one district to another, that they may find abundance of flowers, and by this means prolong the summer. Sometimes this transfer is performed by persons forming an ambulatory establishment, like that of a gipsy horde, and encamping wherever flowers are found plentiful. Bee-caravans of this kind are reported to be not uncommon in some districts of Germany;[689] and in parts of Greece,[690] Italy, and France,[691] the transportation of Bees was practiced from very early times. But a more singular practice in such transportation was to set the Beehives afloat in a canal or river, and we are informed that, in France, one Bee-barge was built of capacity enough for from sixty to one hundred hives, and by floating gently down the river, the Bees had an opportunity of gathering honey from the flowers along the banks.[692]

An instance of Bees being kept in this singular manner is found in the following quotation from the London Times, 1830: “As a small vessel was proceeding up the Channel from the coast of Cornwall, and running near the land, some of the sailors observed a swarm of Bees on an island; they steered for it, landed, and took the Bees on board; succeeded in hiving them immediately, and proceeded on their voyage; as they sailed along shore, the Bees constantly flew from the vessel to the land, to collect honey, and returned again to their moving hive; and this was continued all the way up the Channel.”[693]

In Lower Egypt, observes M. Maillet in his Description of Egypt, where the blossoming of flowers is about six weeks later than in the upper districts, the practice of transporting Beehives is much followed. The hives are collected from different villages along the banks, each being marked and numbered by individual proprietors, to prevent future mistakes. They are then arranged in pyramidal piles upon the boats prepared to receive them, which, floating gradually down the river, and stopping at certain stages of their passage, remain there a longer or a shorter time, according to the produce afforded by the surrounding country within two or three leagues. In this manner the Bee-boats sail for three months; the Bees, having culled the honey of the orange-flowers in the Said, and of the Arabian jasmine and other flowers in the more northern parts, are brought back to the places whence they had been carried. This procures for the Egyptians delicious honey and abundance of wax. The proprietors in return pay the boatmen a recompense proportioned to the number of hives which have been thus carried about from one extremity of Egypt to the other.[694] The celebrated traveler Niebuhr saw upon the Nile, between Cairo and Damietta, a convoy of 4000 hives in their transit from Upper Egypt to the coast of the Delta.[695]

In the Bienenzeitung for 1854, p. 83, appears the following statements: “Mr. Kaden, of Mayence, thinks that the range of the Bee’s flight does not usually extend more than three miles in all directions. Several years ago, a vessel, laden with sugar, anchored off Mayence, and was soon visited by the Bees of the neighborhood, which continued to pass to and from the vessel from dawn to dark. One morning, when the Bees were in full flight, the vessel sailed up the river. For a short time, the Bees continued to fly as numerously as before; but gradually the number diminished, and, in course of half an hour, all had ceased to follow the vessel, which had, meanwhile, sailed more than four miles.”[696]

Aristomachus of Soli, says Pliny, made Bees his exclusive study for a period of fifty-eight years; and Philiocus, the Thracian, surnamed Agrius--“Wildman”--passed his life in desert spots tending swarms of Bees.[697]

Schomburgk says he saw, in his journey to the sources of the Takutu, an Indian, who was the conjuror or piaiman of his tribe, merely approach a nest of the wild Wampang-bees (_Wampisiana camniba_), and knocking with his fingers against it, drive out all the Bees without a single one injuring him. The piaiman, Schomburgk remarks, drew his fingers under the pits of his arms before he knocked against the hive.[698]

Brue, in his first voyage to Siratic, in Africa, met with what he called a “phenomenon” in a person entitling himself the “King of the Bees.” His majesty accordingly came to the boat of the traveler entirely covered with these insects, and followed by thousands, over which he appeared to exercise the most absolute authority. These Bees were never known to injure either himself or those whom he took under his protection.[699]

Mr. Wildman, the most celebrated Bee-tamer, frequently asserted that armed with his friendly Bees he was defensible against the fiercest mastiffs; and, it is said, he actually did, at Salisbury, encounter three yard-dogs one after the other. The conditions of the engagement were, that he should have notice of the dog being set at him. Accordingly the first mastiff was set loose; and as he approached the man, two Bees were detached, which immediately stung him, the one on the nose, the other on the flank; upon receiving the wounds, the dog retired very much daunted. After this, the second dog entered the lists, and was foiled with the same expedition as the first. The third dog was at last brought against the champion, but the animal observing the ill success of his brethren, would not attempt to sustain a combat; so, in a cowardly manner, he retired with his tail between his legs.

Many other remarkable anecdotes are told of this gentleman, illustrating his wonderful control over Bees. He could also, indeed, tame wasps and hornets, with almost the same ease as he could Bees, and an instance is mentioned of his hiving a nest of hornets which hung at the top of the inside of a high barn. He, however, was stung twice in this undertaking.

Mr. Wildman frequently exhibited himself with his head and face almost covered with Bees, and with such a swarm of them hanging down from his chin as to resemble a venerable beard. In this extraordinary dress he was once brought through the City of London sitting in a chair. Before Earl Spencer, Mr. Wildman also made many wonderful performances.[700]

Says Dr. Evans:

Such was the spell, which round a Wildman’s arm
Twined in dark wreaths the fascinated swarm,
Bright o’er his breast the glittering legions led,
Or with a living garland bound his head.
His dexterous hand, with firm but hurtless hold,
Could seize the chief, known by her scales of gold,
Prune, ’mid the wondering throng, her filmy wing,
Or o’er her folds the silken fetter fling.[701]

“Long experience has taught me,” says Mr. Wildman himself, “that as soon as I turn up a hive, and give some taps on the sides and bottom, the queen immediately appears. Being accustomed to see her, I readily perceive her at the first glance; and long practice has enabled me to seize her instantly, with a tenderness that does not in the least endanger her person. Being possessed of her, I can, without exciting any resentment, slip her into my other hand, and returning the hive to its place, hold her, till the Bees, missing her, are all on the wing and in the utmost confusion.” It was then, by placing the queen in view, he could make them light wherever he pleased, from their great attachment to her, and sometimes using a word of command to mystify the spectators, he would cause them to settle on his head, and to hang to his chin like a beard, from which he would order them to his hand, or to an adjacent window. But, however easy such feats may appear in theory, Mr. Wildman cautions (probably with a view to deter rivals) those who are inexperienced not to put themselves in danger of attempting to imitate him. A liberated Roman slave, C. F. Cnesinus, being accused before the tribunals of witchcraft, because his crops were more abundant than those of his neighbors, produced as his witnesses some superior implements of husbandry, and well fed oxen, and pointing to them said: “These, Romans! are my instruments of witchcraft; but I cannot show you my toil, my perseverance, and my anxious cares.” “So,” says Wildman, “may I say, These, Britons! are my instruments of witchcraft; but I cannot show you my hours of attention to this subject, my anxiety and care for these useful insects; nor can I communicate to you my experience acquired during a course of years.”[702]

Butler mentions two instances where the stings of Bees have been fatal to “cattaile”:

“A horse,” he informs us, “in the heate of the day looking over a hedge, on the other side whereof was a staule of Bees, while hee stood nodding with his head, as his manner is, because of the flies, the Bees fell vpon him and killed him. Likewise I heard of a teeme that stretching against a hedge overthrew a staule on the other side, and so two of the horses were stung to death.”[703]

Mungo Park and his party were twice seriously attacked by large swarms of Bees. The first attack is mentioned in the account of his first journey; the second in the account of his second. The latter singular accident befell them in 1805, and is thus narrated in his journal: The coffle had halted at a creek, and the asses had just been unloaded, when some of his guide Isaaca’s people, being in search of honey, unfortunately disturbed a large swarm of Bees near their resting-place. The Bees came out in immense numbers, and attacked men and beasts at the same time. Luckily, most of the asses were loose, and galloped up the valley; but the horses and people were very much stung, and obliged to scamper off in all directions. The fire which had been kindled for cooking, being deserted, spread, and set fire to the bamboos, and the baggage had like to have been burned. In fact, for half an hour the Bees seemed to have completely put an end to the journey. In the evening when they became less troublesome, and the cattle could be collected, it was found that many of them were very much stung, and swollen about the head. Three asses were missing; one died in the course of the evening, and one next morning, and they were forced to leave one behind the next day. Altogether six were lost, besides which, the guide lost his horse, and many of the people were much stung about the face and hands.[704]

But in the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times, we find the following: “Anthenor, writing of the Isle of Crete (with whom also ioyneth Ælianus) saith, that a great multitude of Bees chased al the dwellers out of a City, and vsed their Houses instead of Hives.”[705]

Montaigne mentions the following singular assistance rendered by Bees to the inhabitants of Tamly: The Portuguese having besieged the City of Tamly, in the territory of Xiatine, the inhabitants of the place brought a great many hives, of which there are great plenty in that place, upon the wall; and with fire drove the Bees so furiously upon the enemy that they gave over the enterprise, not being able to stand their attacks and endure their stings: and so the citizens, by this new sort of relief, gained liberty and the victory with so wonderful a fortune, that at the return of their defenders from the battle they found they had not lost so much as one.[706]

Lesser tells us that in 1525, during the confusion occasioned by a time of war, a mob assembling in Hohnstein (in Thuringia) attempted to plunder the house of the minister of Elende; who having spoken to them with no effect, as a last resort ordered his domestics to bring his Beehives, and throw them in the midst of the furious mob. The desired effect was instantaneous, for the mob dispersed immediately.[707]

Bees have also been employed as an article of food. Knox tells us that the natives of Ceylon, when they meet with a swarm of Bees hanging on a tree, hold burning torches under them to make them drop; and so catch and carry them home, where they boil and eat them, in their estimation, as excellent food.[708]

Peter Martyr, speaking of the Caribbean Islands, says: “The Inhabitantes willingly eate the young Bees, rawe, roasted, and sometimes sodden.”[709]

Bancroft tells us that when the negroes of Guiana are stung by Bees, they in revenge eat as many as they can catch.[710]

The following account of the Bee-eater of Selborne, England, is by the Reverend, and very accurate naturalist, Gilbert White: “We had in this village,” says he, “more than twenty years ago (about 1765), an idiot boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child, showed a strong propensity to Bees: they were his food, his amusement, his sole object; and as people of this cast have seldom more than one point in view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the winter he dozed away his time, within his father’s house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid state, seldom departing from the chimney corner; but in the summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the fields and on sunny banks. Honey-bees, Humble-bees, and Wasps were his prey, wherever he found them: he had no apprehensions from their stings, but would seize _nudis manibus_, and at once disarm them of their weapons, and search their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes he would fill his bosom between his shirt and his skin with a number of these captives; and sometimes would confine them in bottles. He was a very _Merops apiaster_, or Bee-bird, and very injurious to men that kept Bees; for he would slide into their Bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools, would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the Bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was making, he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he called _Bee-wine_. As he ran about he used to make a humming noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing of Bees. This lad was lean and sallow, and of a cadaverous complexion; and, except in his favorite pursuit, in which he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no manner of understanding.”[711]

There is a peculiar substance formed by a species of Bee in the Orinoco country, which, says Captain Stedman, the roosting tribes burn incessantly in their habitations, and which effectually protects them from all winged insects. They call it _Comejou_; Gumilla says it is neither earth nor wax.[712]

Concerning the medicinal virtues of Bees, Dr. James says: “Their salts are very volatile, and highly exalted; for this reason, when dry’d, powder’d, and taken internally, they are diuretic and diaphoretic. If this powder is mixed in unguents, with which the head is anointed, it is said to cure the Alopecia, and to contribute to the growth of hair upon bald places.”[713]

Another, an old writer, says: “If Bees, when dead, are dried to powder, and given to either man or beast, this medicine will often give immediate ease in the most excruciating pain, and remove a stoppage in the body when all other means have failed.” A tea made by pouring boiling water upon Bees has recently been prescribed, by high medical authority, for violent strangury; while the poison of the Bee, under the name of _apis_, is a great homœopathic remedy.[714]

Concerning wax, Dr. James says: “All wax is heating, mollifying, and moderately incarning. It is mixed in sorbile liquors as a remedy for dysentery; and ten bits, of the size of a grain of millet, swallowed, prevent the curdling of milk in the breast of nurses.”[715]

[If we might credit the history of former times, says Jamieson, in his Scottish Dictionary, sub. _Walx_, iv. 642-3, there must have been a considerable demand for this article (wax) for the purpose of witchcraft. It was generally found necessary, it would seem, as the medium of inflicting pain on the bodies of men.

“To some others at these times he teacheth, how to make _pictures of waxe_ or clay, that by the wasting thereof, the persons that they beare the name of, may be continually melted or dried away by continuall sickenesse.” K. James’s Dæmonologie, B. II. c. 5.

In order to cause acute pain in the patient, pins, we are told, were stuck in that part of the body of the image, in which they wished the person to suffer.

The same plan was adopted for inspiring another with the ardor of love.

Then mould her form of fairest _wax_,
With adder’s eyes and feet of horn;
Place this small scroll within its breast,
Which I, your friend, have hither borne.

Then make a blaze of alder wood,
Before your fire make this to stand;
And the last night of every moon
The bonny May’s at your command.

_Hogg’s Mountain Bard_, p. 35.

Then it follows:

With fire and steel to urge her weel,
See that you neither stint nor spare;
For if the cock be heard to crow,
The charm will vanish into air.

The wounds given to the image were supposed to be productive of similar _stounds_ of love in the tender heart of the maiden whom it represented.

A female form, of melting _wax_,
Mess John surveyed with steady eye,
Which ever an anon he _pierced_,
And forced the lady loud to cry.--P. 84.

The same horrid rites were observed on the continent. For Grilland (de Sortilegiis) says: Quidam solent apponere _imaginem cerae_ juxta ignem ardentem, completis sacrificiis, de quibus supra, & adhibere quasdam preces nefarias, & turpia verba, ut quemadmodum imago illa igne consumitur & liquescit, eodem modo cor mulieris amoris calore talis viri feruenter ardeat, etc. Malleus Malefic. T. H., p. 232.

It cannot be doubted that these rites have been transmitted from heathenism. Theocritus mentions them as practiced by the Greeks in his time. For he introduces Samoetha as using similar enchantments, partly for punishing, and partly for regaining her faithless lover.

But strew the _salt_, and say in angry tones,
“I scatter Delphid’s, perjured Delphid’s bones.”
--First Delphid injured me, he raised my flame,
And now I burn this bough in Delphid’s name;
As this doth blaze, and break away in fume,
How soon it takes, let Delphid’s flesh consume,
Iynx, restore my false, my perjured swain,
And force him back into my arms again.--
As this devoted _wax_ melts o’er the fire,
Let Mindian Delphy melt in warm desire!

_Idylliums_, p. 12, 13.

Samoetha burns the bough in the name of her false lover, and terms the wax _devoted_. With this the more modern ritual of witchcraft corresponded. The name of the person, represented by the image, was invoked. For according to the narrative given concerning the witches of Pollock-shaws, having bound the image on a spit, they “turned it before the fire,--saying, as they turned it, _Sir George Maxwell, Sir George Maxwell_; and that this was expressed by all of them.” Glanvil’s Sadducismus, p. 391.

According to Grilland, the image was baptized in the name of Beelzebub. Malleus, ut. sup., p. 229.

There is nothing analogous to the Grecian rite, mentioned by Theocritus, of strewing _salt_. For Grilland asserts that, in the festivals of the witches, salt was never presented. Ibid., p. 215. It was perhaps excluded from their infernal rites as having been so much used as a sacred symbol.]

The following are among the twenty-eight “singular vertues” attributed by Butler to Honey: “... It breedeth good blood, it prolongeth old age ... yea the bodies of the dead being embalmed with honey have been thereby preserved from putrefaction. And _Athenæus_ doth witness it to be as effectual for the living, writing out of Lycus, that the Cyrneans, or inhabitants of Corsica, were therefore long-lived, because they did dailie vse to feed on honey, whereof they had abundance: and no marvaile: seeing it is so soveraigne a thing, and so many waies available for man’s health, as well being outwardly as inwardly applied. It is drunke against the bite of a serpent or mad dogs: and it is good for them having eaten mushrooms, or drunke popy, etc.”[716]

In the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times,[717] there are two chapters devoted to the “Vertues of Honey.”

There is a story, that a man once came to Mohammed, and told him that his brother was afflicted with a violent pain in his belly; upon which the prophet bade him give him some honey. The fellow took his advice; but soon after coming again, told him that the medicine had done his brother no manner of service: Mohammed answered, “Go and give him more honey, for God speaks truth, and thy brother’s belly lies.” And the dose being repeated, the man, by God’s mercy, was immediately cured.[718]

In the sixteenth chapter of the Koran, Mohammed has likewise mentioned honey as a medicine for men.[719]

Athenæus tells us that Democritus, the philosopher of Abdera, after he had determined to rid himself of life on account of his extreme old age, and when he had begun to diminish his food day by day, when the day of the Thesmophonian festival came round, and the women of his household besought him not to die during the festival, in order that they might not be debarred from their share of the festivities, was persuaded and ordered a vessel full of honey to be set near him: and in this way he lived many days with no other support than honey; and then some days after, when the honey had been taken away, he died. But Democritus, Athenæus adds, had always been fond of honey; and he once answered a man, who had asked him how he could live in the enjoyment of the best health, that he might do so if he constantly moistened his inward parts with honey and his outward man with oil. Bread and honey was the chief food of the Pythagoreans, according to the statement of Aristoxenus, who says that those who ate this for breakfast were free from disease all their lives.[720]

“The gall of a vulture,” says Moufet, quoting Galen, in Euporist, “mingled with the juice of horehound (twice as much in weight as the gall is) and two parts of honey cures the suffusion of the eyes. Otherwise he mingles one part of the gall of the sea-tortoise, and four times as much honey, and anoints the eyes with it. Serenus prescribes such a receipt to cause one to be quick-sighted:

Mingle Hyblæan honey with the gall
Of Goats, ’tis good to make one see withall.”[721]

We are told in the German Ephemerides, that a young country girl, having eaten a great deal of honey, became so inebriated with it, that she slept the whole day, and talked foolishly the day following.[722]

Bevan, in his work on the Honey-Bee, mentions the following instances of a curious use to which propolis is sometimes put by the Bees: A snail, says he, having crept into one of Mr. Reaumur’s hives early in the morning, after crawling about for some time, adhered, by means of its own slime, to one of the glass panes. The Bees, having discovered the snail, surrounded it, and formed a border of propolis round the verge of its shell, and fastened it so securely to the glass that it became immovable.

Forever closed the impenetrable door;
It naught avails that in its torpid veins
Year after year, life’s loitering spark remains.

EVANS.

Maraldi, another eminent Apiarian, states that a snail without a shell having entered one of his hives, the Bees, as soon as they observed it, stung it to death; after which, being unable to dislodge it, they covered it all over with an impervious coat of propolis.

For soon in fearless ire, their wonder lost,
Spring fiercely from the comb the indignant host,
Lay the pierced monster breathless on the ground,
And clap in joy their victor pinions round:
While all in vain concurrent numbers strive
To heave the slime-girt giant from the hive--
Sure not alone by force instinctive swayed,
But blest with reason’s soul-directing aid,
Alike in man or bee, they haste to pour,
Thick, hard’ning as it falls, the flaky shower;
Embalmed in shroud of glue the mummy lies,
No worms invade, no foul miasmas rise.

EVANS.[723]

Xenophon tells us that all the soldiers, who ate of the honey-combs, found in the villages on the mountains of the Colchians, lost their senses, and were seized with such violent vomiting and purging, that none of them were able to stand upon their legs: that those who ate but little, were like men very drunk, and those who ate much, like madmen, and some like dying persons. In this condition, this writer adds, great numbers lay upon the ground, as if there had been a defeat, and a general sorrow prevailed. The next day, they all recovered their senses, about the same hour they were seized; and, on the third and fourth days, they got up as if they had taken physic.[724]

Pliny accounts for this accident by saying there is found in that country a kind of honey, called from its effects, Thænomenon, that is, that those who eat it are seized with madness. He adds, that the common opinion is that this honey is gathered from the flowers of a plant called _Rhododendros_, which is very common in those parts. Tournefort thinks the modern _Laurocerasus_ is the Rhododendros of Pliny, from the fact that the people of that country, at the present day, believe the honey that is gathered from its flowers will produce the effects described by Xenophon.[725]

The missionary Moffat in South Africa found some poisonous honey, which he unknowingly ate, but with no serious consequences. It was several days, however, before he got rid of a most unpleasant sensation in his head and throat. The plant from which the honey had been gathered was an Euphorbia.[726]

“In Podolia,” says the chronicler Hollingshed, “which is now subject to the King of Poland, their hives (of Bees) and combes are so abundant, that huge bores, overturning and falling into them, are drowned in the honie, before they can recover & find the meanes to come out.”[727]

Honey was offered up to the Sun by the ancient Peruvians.[728]

Dr. Sparrman has described a Hottentot dance, which he calls the Bee-dance. It is in imitation of a swarm of Bees; every performer as he jumps around making a buzzing noise.[729]

“To have a Bee in one’s bonnet” is a Scottish proverbial phrase about equivalent to the English, “To have a maggot in one’s head”--to be hair-brained. Kelly gives this with an additional word: “There’s a Bee in your bonnet-_case_.” In Scotland, too, it is said of a confused or stupefied man, that his “head is in the Bees.”[730] These proverbial expressions were also in vogue in England.[731]

The following beautiful epigram, on a Bee inclosed in amber, is from the pen of Martial: “The Bee is inclosed, and shines preserved, in a tear of the sisters of Phaëton, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar. It has obtained a worthy reward for its great toils; we may suppose that the Bee itself would have desired such a death.

The Bee inclosed, and through the amber shown,
Seems buried in the juice that was her own.
So honor’d was a life in labor spent:
Such might she wish to have her monument.”[732]

The Septuagint has the following eulogium on the Bee in Prov. vi. 8, which is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures: “Go to the Bee, and learn how diligent she is, and what a noble work she produces, whose labors kings and private men use for their health; she is desired and honored by all, and though weak in strength, yet since she values wisdom, she prevails.”[733]

In Spain Bees are in great estimation; and this is evinced by the ancient proverb:

Abeja y oveja,
Y piedra que traveja,
Y pendola trans oreja,
Y parte en la Igreja,
Desea a su hija, la vieja----

The best wishes of a Spanish mother to her son are, Bees, sheep, millstones, a pen behind the ear, and a place in the church.[734]

The following anecdote in the history of the Humble-bee (_Bombus_) is from the account of Josselyn of his voyages to New England, printed in 1674: “Near upon twenty years since there lived an old planter near _Blackpoint_, who on a Sunshine day about one of the clock lying upon a green bank not far from his house, charged his Son, a lad of 12 years of age, to awaken him when he had slept two hours; the old man falls asleep, and lying upon his back gaped with his mouth wide open enough for a Hawke to ---- into it; after a little while the lad sitting by spied a Humble-bee creeping out of his Father’s mouth, which taking wing flew quite out of sight, the hour as the lad guest being come to awaken his Father, he jagged him and called aloud Father, Father, it is two o’clock, but all would not rouse him, at last he sees the Humble-bee returning, who lighted upon the sleeper’s lip and walked down as the lad conceived into his belly, and presently he awaked.”[735]

The following, on the different species of Humble-bees, is one of the popular rhymes of Scotland:

The todler-tyke has a very gude byke,
And sae has the gairy Bee;
But weel’s me on the little red-doup,
The best o’ a’ the three.[736]

When the Archbishop of St. Andrews was cruelly murdered in 1679, “upon the opening of his tobacco box a living humming bee flew out,” which was explained to be a familiar or devil. A Scottish woman declared that a child was poisoned by its grandmother, who, together with herself, were “in the shape of bume-bees,” that the former carried the poison “in her cleugh, wings, and mouth.” A great Bee constantly resorted to another after receiving the Satanic mark, and rested on it.[737]

An anecdote is related by M. Reaumur respecting the thimble-shaped nest, formed of leaves, of the Carpenter-bee (_Apis centuncularis_?), which is a striking instance of the ridiculous superstition which prevails among the uneducated, and which even sometimes has no slight influence on those of better understandings. “In the beginning of July, 1736, the learned Abbé Nollet, then at Paris, was surprised by a visit from an auditor of the chamber of accounts, whose estate lay at a distant village on the borders of the Seine, a few leagues from Rouen. This gentleman came accompanied, among other domestics, by a gardener, whose face had an air of much concern. He had come to Paris in consequence of having found in his master’s ground many rows of leaves, unaccountably disposed in a mystical manner, and which he could not but believe were there placed by witchcraft, for the secret destruction of his lord and family. He had, after recovering from his first consternation, shown them to the curate of the parish, who was inclined to be of a similar opinion, and advised him without delay to take a journey to Paris, and make his lord acquainted with the circumstance. This gentleman, though not quite so much alarmed as the honest gardener, could not feel himself at perfect ease, and therefore thought it advisable to consult his surgeon upon the business, who, though a man eminent in his profession, declared himself utterly unacquainted with the nature of what was shown him, but took the liberty of advising that the Abbé Nollet, as a philosopher, should be consulted, whose well-known researches in natural knowledge might perhaps enable him to elucidate the matter. It was in consequence of this advice that the Abbé received the visit above mentioned, and had the satisfaction of relieving all parties from their embarrassment, by showing them several nests formed on a similar plan by other insects, and assuring them that those in their possession were the work of insects also.”[738]

In an English paper, the Observer, of July 25, 1813, there is an account of a “swarm of Bees resting themselves on the inside of a lady’s parasol.” They were hived without any serious injury to the lady.

In the Annual Register, 1767, p. 117, there was published by M. Lippi, Licentiate in Physic of the army of Paris, an account of a petrified Beehive, discovered on the mountains of Siout, in Upper Egypt. Broken open it disclosed the larvæ of Bees in the cells, hard and solid, and Bees themselves dried up like mummies. Honey was also found in the cells![739] The account is curious, but not entitled to much credit.

In the Liverpool Advertiser, and Times, of Nov. 24, 1817, there is a lengthy account of three Bees being found in a state of animation in a huge solid rock from the Western Point Quarry. Scientific attention was attracted, and as appears from the above-mentioned papers of Dec. 5, 1817, the mystery was cleared up by discovering in the rock “a sand hole” through which the insects had made their way.[740]

ORDER VI.

LEPIDOPTERA.

Papilionidæ--Butterflies.

The lepidopterous insects in general, soon after they emerge from the pupa state, and commonly during their first flight, discharge some drops of a red-colored fluid, more or less intense in different species, which, in some instances, where their numbers have been considerable, have produced the appearance of a “shower of blood,” as this natural phenomenon is commonly called.

Showers of blood have been recorded by historians and poets as preternatural--have been considered in the light of prodigies, and regarded where they have happened as fearful prognostics of impending evils.

There are two passages in Homer, which, however poetical, are applicable to a rain of this kind; and among the prodigies which took place after the death of the great dictator, Ovid particularly mentions a shower of blood:

Sæpe faces visæ mediis ardere sub astris,
Sæpe inter nimbos guttæ cecidere cruentæ.

With threatening signs the lowering skies were fill’d,
And sanguine drops from murky clouds distilled.

Among the numerous prodigies reported by Livy to have happened in the year 214 B.C., it is instanced that, at Mantua, a stagnating piece of water, caused by the overflowing of the River Mincius, appeared as of blood; and, in the cattle-market at Rome, a shower of blood fell in the Istrian Street. After mentioning several other remarkable phenomena that happened during that year, Livy concludes by saying that these prodigies were expiated, conformably to the answers of the Aruspices, by victims of the greater kinds, and supplication was ordered to be performed to all the deities who had shrines at Rome.[741] Again it is stated by Livy, that many alarming prodigies were seen at Rome in the year 181 B.C., and others reported from abroad; among which was a shower of blood, which fell in the courts of the temples of Vulcan and Concord. After mentioning that the image of Juno Sospita shed tears, and that a pestilence broke out in the country, this writer adds, that these prodigies, and the mortality which prevailed, alarmed the Senate so much, that they ordered the consuls to sacrifice to such gods as their judgment should direct, victims of the larger kinds, and that the Decemvirs should consult their books. Pursuant to their direction, a supplication for one day was proclaimed to be performed at every shrine at Rome; and they advised, besides, and the Senate voted, and the consul proclaimed, that there should be a supplication and public worship for three days throughout all Italy.[742] In the year 169 B.C., Livy also mentions that a shower of blood fell in the middle of the day. The Decemvirs were again called upon to consult their books, and again were sacrifices offered to the deities.[743] The account, also, of Livy, of the bloody sweat, on some of the statues of the gods, must be referred to the same phenomenon; as the predilection of those ages to marvel, says Thomas Brown, and the want of accurate investigation in the cases recorded, as well as the rare occurrence of these atmospherical depositions in our own times, inclines us to include them among the blood-red drops deposited by insects.[744]

In Stow’s Annales of England, we have two accounts of showers of blood; and from an edition printed in London in 1592, we make our quotations: “Rivallus, sonne of Cunedagius, succeeded his father, in whose time (in the year 766 B.C.) it rained bloud 3 dayes: after which tempest ensued a great multitude of venemous flies, which slew much people, and then a great mortalitie throughout this lande, caused almost desolation of the same.”[745] The second account is as follows: “In the time of Brithricus (A.D. 786) it rayned blood, which falling on men’s clothes, appeared like crosses.”[746]

Hollingshed, Graften, and Fabyan have also recorded these instances in their respective chronicles of England.[747]

A remarkable instance of bloody rain is introduced into the very interesting Icelandic ghost story of Thorgunna. It appears that in the year of our Lord 1009, a woman called Thorgunna came from the Hebrides to Iceland, where she stayed at the house of Thorodd: and during the hay season, a shower of blood fell, but only, singularly, on that portion of the hay she had not piled up as her share, which so appalled her that she betook herself to her bed, and soon afterward died. She left, to finish the story, a remarkable will, which, from not being executed, was the cause of several violent deaths, the appearance of ghosts, and, finally, a legal action of ejectment against the ghosts, which, it need hardly be said, drove them effectually away.[748]

In 1017, a shower of blood fell in Aquitaine;[749] and Sleidan relates that in the year 1553 a vast multitude of Butterflies swarmed through a great part of Germany, and sprinkled plants, leaves, buildings, clothes, and men with bloody drops, as if it had rained blood.[750] We learn also from Bateman’s Doome, that these “drops of bloude upon hearbes and trees,” in 1553, were deemed among the forewarnings of the deaths of Charles and Philip, dukes of Brunswick.[751]

In Frankfort, in the year 1296, among other prodigies, some spots of blood led to a massacre of the Jews, in which ten thousand of these unhappy descendants of Abraham lost their lives.[752]

In the beginning of July, 1608, an extensive shower of blood took place at Aix, in France, which threw the people of that place into the utmost consternation, and, which is a much more important fact, led to the first satisfactory and philosophical explanation of this phenomenon, but too late, alas! to save the Jews of Frankfort. This explanation was given by M. Peiresc, a celebrated philosopher of that place, and is thus referred to by his biographer, Gassendi: “Nothing in the whole year 1608 did more please him than that he observed and philosophized about, the _bloody rain_, which was commonly reported to have fallen about the beginning of July; great drops thereof were plainly to be seen, both in the city itself, upon the walls of the church-yard of the church, which is near the city wall, and upon the city walls themselves; also upon the walls of villages, hamlets, and towns, for some miles round about; for in the first place, he went himself to see those wherewith the stones were colored, and did what he could to come to speak with those husbandmen, who, beyond Lambesk, were reported to have been affrighted at the falling of said rain, that they left their work, and ran as fast as their legs could carry them into the adjacent houses. Whereupon, he found that it was a fable that was reported, touching those husbandmen. Nor was he pleased that naturalists should refer this kind of rain to vapours drawn up out of red earth aloft in the air, which congealing afterwards into liquor, fall down in this form; because such vapours as are drawne aloft by heat, ascend without color, as we may know by the alone example of red roses, out of which the vapours that arise by heat are congealed into transparent water. He was less pleased with the common people, and some divines, who judged that it was the work of the devils and witches who had killed innocent young children; for this he counted a mere conjecture, possibly also injurious to the goodness and providence of God.

“In the mean while an accident happened, out of which he conceived he had collected the true cause thereof. For, some months before, he shut up in a box a certain palmer-worm which he had found, rare for its bigness and form; which, when he had forgotten, he heard a buzzing in the box, and when he opened it, found the palmer-worm, having cast its coat, to be turned into a beautiful Butterfly, which presently flew away, leaving in the bottom of the box a red drop as broad as an ordinary sous or shilling; and because this happened about the beginning of the same month, and about the same time an incredible multitude of Butterflies were observed flying in the air, he was therefore of opinion that such kind of Butterflies resting on the walls had there shed such like drops, and of the same bigness. Whereupon, he went the second time, and found, by experience, that those drops were not to be found on the house-tops, nor upon the round sides of the stones which stuck out, as it would have happened, if blood had fallen from the sky, but rather where the stones were somewhat hollowed, and in holes, where such small creatures might shroud and nestle themselves. Moreover, the walls which were so spotted, were not in the middle of towns, but they were such as bordered upon the fields, nor were they on the highest parts, but only so moderately high as Butterflies are commonly wont to fly.

“Thus, therefore, he interpreted that which Gregory of Tours relates, touching a bloody rain seen at Paris in divers places, in the days of Childebert, and on a certain house in the territory of Seulis; also that which is storied, touching raining of blood about the end of June, in the days of King Robert; so that the blood which fell upon flesh, garments, or stones could not be washed out, but that which fell on wood might; for it was the same season of Butterflies, and experience hath taught us, that no water will wash these spots out of the stones, while they are fresh and new. When he had said these and such like things to various, a great company of auditors being present, it was agreed that they should go together and search out the matter, and as they went up and down, here and there, through the fields, they found many drops upon stones and rocks; but they were only on the hollow and under parts of the stones, but not upon those which lay most open to the skies.”[753]

This memorable shower of blood was produced by the _Vanessa urticæ_, or _V. polychloros_, most probably, since these species of Butterflies are said to have been uncommonly plentiful at the time when, and in the particular district where, the phenomenon was observed.[754][755]

Nicoll, in his Diary, p. 8, informs us that on the 28th of May, 1650, “there rained blood the space of three miles in the Earl of Buccleuch’s bounds (Scotland), near the English border, which was verefied in presence of the Committee of State.”[756]

We learn from Fountainhall that on Sunday, May 1st, 1687, a young woman of noted piety, Janet Fraser by name, the daughter of a weaver in the parish of Closeburn, Dumfriesshire, went out to the fields with a young female companion, and sat down to read the Bible not far from her father’s house. Feeling thirsty, she went to the river-side (the Nith) to get a drink, leaving her Bible open at the place where she had been reading, which presented the verses of the 34th chapter of Isaiah, beginning--“My sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment,” etc. On returning, she found a patch of something like blood covering this very text. In great surprise, she carried the book home, where a young man tasted the substance with his tongue, and found it of a saltless or insipid flavor. On the two succeeding Sundays, while the same girl was reading the Bible in the open air, similar blotches of matter, like blood, fell upon the leaves. She did not perceive it in the act of falling till it was about an inch from the book. “It is not blood,” our informant adds, “for it is as tough as glue, and will not be scraped off by a knife, as blood will; but it is so like blood, as none can discern any difference by the colour.”[757]

On Tuesday, Oct. 9th, 1764, “a kind of rain of a red color, resembling blood, fell in many parts of the Duchy of Cleves, which caused great consternation. M. Bouman sent a bottle of it to Dr. Schutte, to know if it contained anything pernicious to health. Something of the like kind fell also at Rhenen, in the Province of Utrecht.”[758]

Dr. Schutte, to whom was submitted a bottle of this red rain, gave it as his opinion that it was caused by particles of red matter, which had been raised into the atmosphere by a strong wind, and that it was in no way hurtful to mankind or beasts![759]

In 1819, a red shower fell in Carniola, which, being analyzed, says Bucke, was found to be impregnated with silex, alumine, and oxide of iron. Red rain fell also at Dixmude, in Flanders, November 2d, 1829; and on the following day at Schenevingen, the acid obtained from which was chloric acid, and the metal cobalt.[760]

In the year 1780, Rombeag noticed a shower of blood that had excited universal attention, and which he could satisfactorily show to be produced by the flying forth and casting of bees, as the phenomenon in the place around the beehives themselves was remarkably striking. From this fact it is evident that the appearance is attributable to other insects as well as the lepidoptera.[761]

Bloody rain has also been attributed, with much apparent reason, to other causes still, as the following accounts from reliable authorities show:

In 1848, Dr. Eckhard, of Berlin, when attending a case of cholera, found potatoes and bread within the house spotted with a red coloring matter, which, being forwarded to Ehrenberg, was found by him to be due to the presence of an animalcule, to which he gave the name of the _Monas prodigiosa_. It was found that other pieces of bread could be inoculated with this matter.[762]

Swammerdam relates that, one morning in 1670, great excitement was created in the Hague by a report that the lakes and ditches about Leyden were turned to blood. Florence Schuyl, the celebrated professor of physic in the University of Leyden, went down to the canals, and taking home a quantity of this blood-colored matter examined it with a microscope, and found that the water was water still, and had not at all changed its color; but that it was full of small red animals, all alive and very nimble in their motions, the color and prodigious numbers of which gave a reddish tinge to the whole body of the water in which they lived. The animals which thus color the water of lakes and ponds are the _Pulices arborescentes_ of Swammerdam, or the water fleas with branched horns. These creatures are of a reddish yellow or flame color. They live about the sides of ditches, under weeds, and among the mud; and are therefore the less visible, except at a certain time, which is in the month of June. It is at this time these little animals leave their recesses to float about the water, and meet for the propagation of their species; and by this means they become visible in the color which they give to the water. The color in question is visible, more or less, in one part or other of almost all standing waters at this season; and it is always at the same season that the bloody waters have alarmed the ignorant.[763]

The prodigy, mentioned by Livy, of a stagnating piece of water at Mantua appearing as of blood, was no doubt owing to the appearance of great numbers of the _Pulices arborescentes_ in it.[764]

Concerning the origin of bloody rain, Swammerdam entertained the same idea as Peiresc; but he does not appear to have verified it from his own observation. He makes the following remarks: “Is it not possible that such red drops might issue from insects, at the time they come fresh from the nymphs, which distil a bloody fluid? This seems to happen especially when such insects are more than ordinarily multiplied in any particular year, as we often experience in the butterflies, flies, gnats, and others.”[765]

Dust is commonly attributed as the cause of this phenomenon, but will satisfactorily explain only a few instances. A writer for Chambers’ Journal, in an article on showers of red dust, bloody rain, etc., says: “In October, 1846, a fearful and furious hurricane visited Lyon, and the district between that city and Grenoble, during which occurred a fall of blood-rain. A number of drops were caught and preserved, and when the moisture was evaporated, there was seen the same kind of dust (as fell in showers in Genoa in 1846) of a yellowish brown or red color. When placed under the microscope, it exhibited a great proportion of fresh water and marine formations. Phytolytharia were numerous, as also ‘neatly-lobed vegetable scales;’ which, as Ehrenberg observes, is sufficient to disprove the assertion that the substance is found in the atmosphere itself, and is not of European origin. For the first time, a living organism was met with, the ‘_Eunota amphyoxis_, with its ovaries green, and therefore capable of life.’ Here was a solution of the mystery: the dust, mingling with the drops of water falling from the clouds, produced the red rain. Its appearance is that of reddened water, and it cannot be called blood-like without exaggeration.”[766]