Chapter IX: Part 9

To conclude the history of bloody rain, the following is most appropriate: In 1841, some negroes, in Wilson County, Tennessee, reported that it had rained blood in the tobacco field where they had been at work; that near noon there was a rattling noise like rain or hail, and drops of blood, as they supposed, fell from a red cloud that was flying over. Prof. Troost, of Nashville, was called upon to explain the phenomenon; and, after citing many instances of red rain, red snow, and so called showers of blood, he concluded his learned article with this opinion: “A wind might have taken up part of an animal, which was in a state of decomposition, and have brought it in contact with an electric cloud, in which it was kept in a state of partial fluidity or viscosity. In this case, the cloud which was seen by the negroes, as the state in which the materials were, is accounted for.”

Prof. Troost published this profound solution in the forty-first volume of Silliman’s Journal; but in the forty-fourth of the same magazine a much more satisfactory one is given, for it is there stated “that the whole affair was a hoax devised by the negroes, who pretended to have seen the shower for the sake of practicing on the credulity of their masters. They had scattered the decaying flesh of a dead hog over the tobacco leaves.”[767]

Another phenomenon to be particularly noticed in the history of the Butterflies, is their appearance at certain times in countless numbers migrating from place to place. H. Kapp, a writer in the _Naturforsch_, observed on a calm sunny day a prodigious flight of the Cabbage-Butterfly, _Pontia brassicæ_, which passed from northeast to southwest, and lasted two hours.[768] Kalm, the Swedish traveler, saw these last insects midway in the British Channel.[769] Lindley tells us that in Brazil, in the beginning of March, 1803, for many days successively there was an immense flight of white and yellow Butterflies, probably of the same tribe as the _Pontia brassicæ_. They were observed never to settle, but proceeded in a direction from northwest to southeast. No buildings seemed to stop them from steadily pursuing their course; which being to the ocean, at only a small distance, they must all have inevitably perished. It is to be remarked that at this time no other kind of Butterfly was to be seen, though the country usually abounds in such a variety.[770]

A somewhat similar migration of Butterflies was observed in Switzerland on the 8th or 10th of June, 1828. The facts are as follows: Madame de Meuron Wolff and her family, established during the summer in the district of Grandson, Canton de Vaud, perceived with surprise an immense flight of Butterflies traversing the garden with great rapidity. They were all of the species called _Belle Dame_ by the French, and by the English the Painted Lady (_Vanessa cardui_, Stephens). They were all flying close together in the same direction, from south to north, and were so little afraid when any one approached, that they turned not to the right or to the left. The flight continued for two hours without interruption, and the column was about ten or fifteen feet broad. They did not stop to alight on flowers; but flew onward, low and equally. This fact is the more singular, when it is considered that the larvæ of the _Vanessa cardui_ are not gregarious, but are solitary from the moment they are hatched; nor are the Butterflies themselves usually found together in numbers. Professor Bonelli, of Turin, however, observed a similar flight of the same species of Butterflies in the end of March preceding their appearance at Grandson, when it may be presumed they had just emerged from the pupa state. Their flight, as at Grandson, was from south to north, and their numbers were so immense, that at night the flowers were literally covered with them. As the spring advanced, their numbers diminished; but even in June a few still continued. A similar flight of Butterflies is recorded about the end of the last century by M. Loche, in the Memoirs of the Turin Academy. During the whole season, these Butterflies, as well as their larvæ, were very abundant, and more beautiful than usual.[771]

Pallas once saw such vast flights of the orange-tipped Butterfly, _Pontia cardamines_, in the vicinity of Winofka, that he at first mistook them for flakes of snow.[772] At Barbados, some days previous to the hurricane in 1780, the trees and shrubs were entirely covered with a species of Butterfly of the most beautiful colors, so as to screen from the sight the branches, and even the trunks of the trees. In the afternoon before the gale came on, and when it was quite still, they all suddenly disappeared. The gale came on soon after.[773] Darwin tells us that several times, when the “Beagle” had been some miles off the mouth of the Plata, and at other times when off the shores of Northern Patagonia, the air was filled with insects: that one evening, when the ship was about ten miles from the Bay of San Blas, vast numbers of Butterflies, in bands or flocks of countless myriads, extended as far as the eye could range. The seamen cried out “It was raining Butterflies,” and such in fact, continues Darwin, was the appearance. Several species were in this flock, but they were chiefly of a kind very similar to, but not identical with, the common English _Colias edusa_. Some moths and hymenopterous insects accompanied the Butterflies; and a fine beetle (_Calosoma_) flew on board.[774] Captain Adams mentions an extraordinary flight of small Butterflies, with spotted wings, which took place at Annamaboo, on the Guinea coast, after a tornado. The wind veered to the northward, and blew fresh from the land, with thick mist, which brought off from the shore so many of these insects, that for one hour the atmosphere was so filled with them as to represent a snow-storm driving past the vessel at a rapid rate, which was lying at anchor about two miles from the shore.[775]

Mr. Charles J. Anderson encountered, in South-western Africa, for two consecutive days, such immense myriads of lemon-colored Butterflies that the sound caused by their wings was such as to resemble “the distant murmuring of waves on the sea-shore.” They always passed in the same direction as the wind blew, and, as numbers were constantly alighting on the flowers, their appearance at such times was not unlike “the falling of leaves before a gentle autumnal breeze.”[776]

In Bermuda, October 10, 1847, the Butterfly, _Terias lisa_ of Boisduval, suddenly appeared in great abundance, hundreds being seen in every direction. Previous to that occasion, Mr. Hurdis, the observer of this flight, had never met with this Butterfly. In the course of a few days, they had all disappeared.[777]

In Ceylon, in the months of April and May, migrations of Butterflies (mostly the _Callidryas hilariæ_, _C. alcmeone_, and _C. pyranthe_, with straggling individuals of the genus _Euplœa_, _E. coras_, and _E. prothoe_) are quite frequent. Their passage is generally in a northeasterly direction. The flights of these delicate insects appear to the eye of a white or pale yellow hue, and apparently to extend miles in breadth, and of such prodigious length as to occupy hours, and even days, in their uninterrupted passage. A friend of Tennent, traveling from Kandy to Kornegalle, drove for _nine miles_ through such a cloud of white Butterflies, which was passing _across_ the road by which he went. Whence these immense numbers of Butterflies come no one knows, and whither going no one can tell. But the natives have a superstitious belief that their flight is ultimately directed to Adam’s Peak, and that their pilgrimage ends on reaching that sacred mountain.[778]

Moufet says: “Wert thou as strong as Milo or Hercules, and wert fenced or guarded about with an host of giants for force and valour, remember that such an army was put to the worst by an army of Butterflies flying in troops in the air, in the year 1104, and they hid the light of the sun like a cloud. Licosthenes relates, that on the third day of August, 1543, that no hearb was left by reason of their multitudes, and they had devoured all the sweet dew and natural moisture, and they had burned up the very grasse that was consumed with their dry dung.”[779]

The most beautiful as well as pleasing emblem among the Egyptians was exhibited under the character of Psyche--the Soul. This was originally no other than a Butterfly: but it afterwards was represented as a lovely female child with the beautiful wings of that insect. The Butterfly, after its first and second stages as an egg and larva, lies for a season in a manner dead; and is inclosed in a sort of coffin. In this state it remains a shorter or longer period; but at last bursting its bonds, it comes out with new life, and in the most beautiful attire. The Egyptians thought this a very proper picture of the soul of man, and of the immortality, to which it aspired. But they made it more particularly an emblem of Osiris; who having been confined in an oak or coffin, and in a state of death, at last quitted his prison, and enjoyed a renewal of life.[780] This symbol passed over to the Greeks and Romans, who also considered the Butterfly as the symbol of Zephyr.[781]

Among the coats of arms of several of our most celebrated tribes of Indians, Baron Lahontan mentions one, that of the “Illinese,” which bore a beech-leaf with a Butterfly argent.[782]

The sight of a trio of Butterflies is considered an omen of death.[783] An English superstition.

If a Butterfly enters a house, a death is sure to follow shortly in the family occupying it; if it enters through the window, the death will be that of an infant or very young person. As far as I know this superstition is peculiar to Maryland.

If a Butterfly alights upon your head, it foretells good news from a distance. This superstition obtains in Pennsylvania and Maryland.

The first Butterfly seen in the summer brings good luck to him who catches it. This notion prevails in New York.

In Western Pennsylvania, it is believed that if the chrysalides of Butterflies be found suspended mostly on the under sides of rails, limbs, etc., as it were to protect them from rain, that there will soon be much rain, or, as it is termed, a “rainy spell”; but, on the contrary, if they are found on twigs and slender branches, that the weather will be dry and clear.

Du Halde and Grosier tell us that the Butterflies of the mountain of Lo-few-shan, in the province of Quang-tong, China, are so much esteemed for their size and beauty, that they are sent to court, where they become a part of certain ornaments in the palaces. The wings of these Butterflies are very large, and their colors surprisingly diversified and lively.[784] Dionysius Kao, a native of China, also remarks, in his Geographical Description of that Empire, that the Butterflies of Quang-tong are generally sent to the emperor, as they form a part of the furniture of the imperial cabinets.[785]

Osbeck says the Chinese put up insects in boxes made of coarse wood, without covering, and lined with paper, which they carry round to sell; each box bringing half a piastre. Of the Butterflies, which were the principal insects thus sold, he enumerates twenty-one species.[786]

The Chinese children make Butterflies of paper, with which “they play after night by sending them, like kites, into the air.”[787]

We learn from Captain Stedman, that even in the forests of Guiana, some people make Butterfly-catching their business, and obtain much money by it. They collect and arrange them in paper boxes, and send them off to the different cabinets of Europe.[788]

Butterflies are now extensively worn by French and American ladies on their head-dresses.

From the relations of Sir Anthony Shirley, quoted in Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy,[789] we learn that the kings of Persia were wont to hawk after Butterflies with sparrows and stares, or starlings, trained for the purpose; and we are also told that M. de Luisnes (afterward Prime Minister of France), in the nonage of Louis XIII., gained much upon him by making hawks catch little birds, and by making some of those little birds again catch Butterflies.[790]

In the Zoological Journal, No. 13, it is recorded that at a meeting of the Linnæan Society, March 11, 1832, Mr. Stevens exhibited a remarkable freak of nature in a specimen of _Vanessa urtica_, which possessed five wings, the additional one being formed by a second, but smaller, hinder wing on one side.[791]

J. A. de Mandelsloe, who made a voyage to the East Indies in 1639, tells us that not far from the Fort of Ternate grows a certain shrub, called by the Indians _Catopa_, from which falls a leaf, which, by degrees, is supposed to be metamorphosed into a Butterfly.[792]

De Pauw tells us that, not long before his time, the French peasants entertained a kind of worship for the chrysalis of the caterpillar found on the great nettle (the pupa of _Vanessa cardui_?), because they fancied that it revealed evident traces of Divinity; and quotes M. Des Landes in saying that the curates had even ornamented the altars with these pupæ.[793]

The Butterfly (Ang. Sax. _Buttor-fleoge_, or _Buter-flege_) is so named from the common yellow species, or from its appearing in the butter season. Its German names are _Schmetterling_, from _schmetten_, cream; and _Molkendieb_, the Whey-thief. The association with milk in its three forms, in butter, cream, and whey, is remarkable.

The African Bushmen eat the caterpillars of Butterflies; and the Natives of New Holland eat the caterpillars of a species of Moth, and also a kind of Butterfly, which they call _Bugong_, which congregates in certain districts, at particular seasons, in countless myriads. On these occasions the native blacks assemble from far and near to collect them; and after removing the wings and down by stirring them on the ground, previously heated by a large fire, winnowing them, eat the bodies, or store them up for use, by pounding and smoking them. The bodies of these Butterflies abound in oil, and taste like nuts. When first eaten, they produce violent vomitings and other debilitating effects; but these go off after a few days, and the natives then thrive and fatten exceedingly on this diet, for which they have to contend with a black crow, which is also attracted by the Butterflies, and which they dispatch with their clubs and use also as food.

Another practice in Australia is to follow up the flight of the Butterflies, and to light fires at nightfall beneath the trees in which they have settled. The smoke brings the insects down, when their bodies are collected and pounded together into a sort of fleshy loaf.[794]

Bennet tells us the larva of a Lepidopterous insect (the _Bugong_?) that destroys the green-wattle (_Acacia decurrens_) is much sought after, and considered a delicacy, by the blacks of Australia. These people eat also the pink grubs found in the wattle-trees, either roasted or uncooked. Europeans, who have tasted of this dish, say it is not disagreeable.[795]

Swammerdam, treating of the metamorphoses of larvæ into pupæ and thence into perfect insects, makes the following curious comparison: “The worms, after the manner of the brides in Holland, shut themselves up for a time, as it were to prepare, and render themselves more amiable, when they are to meet the other sex in the field of Hymen.”[796]

Sphingidæ--Hawk-moths.

To the superstitious imaginations of the Europeans, the conspicuous markings on the back of a large evening moth, the _Sphinx Atropos_, represent the human skull, with the thigh-bones crossed beneath; hence is it called the _Death’s-head Moth_, the _Death’s-head Phantom_, the _Wandering Death-bird_, etc. Its cry,[797] which closely resembles the noise caused by the creaking of cork, or the plaintive squeaking of a mouse, certainly more than enough to frighten the ignorant and superstitious, is considered the voice of anguish, the moaning of a child, the signal of grief; and it is regarded “not as the creation of a benevolent being, but as the device of evil spirits”--spirits, enemies to man, conceived and fabricated in the dark; and the very shining of its eyes is supposed to represent the fiery element whence it is thought to have proceeded. Flying into their apartments in the evening, it at times extinguishes the light, foretelling war, pestilence, famine, and death to man. The sudden appearance of these insects, we are informed by Latrielle, during a season while the people were suffering from an epidemic disease, tended much to confirm the notions of the superstitious in that district, and the disease was attributed by them entirely to their visitation.[798] Jaeger says, at a very recent day, that this large Moth first attracted his “attention during the prevalence of a severe and fatal epidemic, and of course nothing more was necessary than its appearance at such a time to induce an ignorant people to believe it the veritable prophet and forerunner of death. A curate in Bretagne, France,” continues this author, “made a most horrible and fear-exciting description of this animal, describing the very loud and dreadful sound which it emitted as a sort of lamentation for the awful calamity which was coming on the earth.”[799] Reaumur informs us that all the members of a female convent in France were thrown into the greatest consternation at the appearance of one of these insects, which happened to fly in during the evening at one of the windows of the dormitory.[800]

In the Isle of France, the natives believe that the dust (scales) cast from the wings of the Death’s-head Moth, in flying through an apartment, is productive of blindness to the visual organs on which it falls.[801]

There is a quaint superstition in England that the Death’s-head Moth has been very common in Whitehall ever since the martyrdom of Charles I.[802]

Illustrative of the tough texture of the skin with which many soft larvæ are provided for protection, the following may be instanced: Bonnet squeezed under water the caterpillar of the privet Hawk-moth, _Sphinx ligustris_, till it was as flat and empty as the finger of a glove, yet within an hour it became plump and lively as if nothing had happened.[803]

The name Sphinx is applied to this genus of insects from a fancied resemblance between the attitude assumed by the larvæ of several of the larger species, when disturbed, and that of the Egyptian Sphinx.

Bombicidæ--Silk-worm Moths.

The notices of the cultivation of the mulberry and the rearing of Silk-worms, found in Chinese works, have been industriously collected and published by M. Julien, by order of the French government. From his work it appears that credible notices of the culture of the tree and the manufacture of silk are found as far back as B.C. 780; and in referring its invention to the Empress Siling, or Yuenfi, wife of the Emperor Hwangti, B.C. 2602 (Du Halde says 2698), the Chinese have shown their belief of its still higher antiquity. The Shi King contains this distich:

The legitimate wife of Hwangti, named Siling Shi,
began to rear Silk-worms:
At this period Hwangti invented the art of making clothing.

Du Halde says this invention raised the Empress to the rank of a divinity, under the title of Spirit of the Silk-worm, and of the Mulberry-tree.[804]

The Book of Rites contains a notice of the festival held in honor of this art, which corresponds to that of plowing by the emperor. “In the last month of spring, the young empress purified herself and offered sacrifice to the goddess of Silk-worms. She went into the eastern fields and collected mulberry-leaves. She forbade noble dames and the ladies of statesmen adorning themselves, and excused her attendants from their sewing and embroidery, in order that they might give all their care to the rearing of Silk-worms.”[805]

The manufacture of silk has been known in India from time immemorial, it being mentioned in the oldest Sanscrit books.[806] It is the opinion of modern writers, however, that the culture of the Silk-worm passed from China into India, thence through Persia, and then, after the lapse of several centuries, into Europe. But long before this, wrought silk had been introduced into Greece from Persia. This was effected by the army of Alexander the Great, about the year 323 before Christ.

The Greeks fabled silk to have first been woven in the Island of Cos by Pamphila, the daughter of Plateos.[807] Of its true origin they were, in a great measure, ignorant, but seem to have been positive that it was the work of an insect. Pausanias thus describes the animal and its culture: “But the thread, from which the Ceres (an Ethiopian race) make garments, is not produced from a tree, but is procured by the following method: A worm is found in their country which the Greeks call _Seer_, but the Ceres themselves, by a different name. This worm is twice as large as a beetle, and, in other respects, resembles spiders which weave under trees. It has, likewise, eight feet as well as the spider. The Ceres rear these insects in houses adapted for this purpose both to summer and winter. What these insects produce is a slender thread, which is rolled round their feet. They feed them for four years on oatmeal; and on the fifth (for they do not live beyond five years) they give them a green reed to feed on: for this is the sweetest of all food to this insect. It feeds, therefore, on this till it bursts through fullness, and dies: after which, they draw from its bowels a great quantity of thread.”[808]

Aristotle seems to have had a much clearer idea of the origin of silk, for he says it was unwound from the _pupa_ (he does not expressly say the _pupa_, but this we must suppose) of a large horned caterpillar.[809] The _larva_ he means could not, however, be the common Silk-worm, since it is rather small and without horns.

Pliny, who, most probably, obtained the most of his ideas from Pausanias and Aristotle, was of opinion that silk was the produce of a worm which built clay-nests and collected wax. At first these worms, he says, assume the appearance of small butterflies with naked bodies, but soon after, being unable to endure the cold, they throw out bristly hairs, which assume quite a thick coat against the winter, by rubbing off the down that covers the leaves, by the aid of the roughness of their feet. This they compress into balls by carding it with their claws, and then draw it out and hang it between the branches of the trees, making it fine by combing it out, as it were: last of all, they take and roll it round their body, thus forming a nest in which they are enveloped. It is in this state that they are taken; after which they are placed in earthen vessels in a warm place, and fed upon bran. A peculiar sort of down soon shoots forth upon the body, on being clothed with which they are sent to work upon another task.[810]

The first kinds of silk dresses worn by the Roman ladies were from the Island of Cos, and, as Pliny says, were known by the name of _Coæ vestes_.[811] These dresses, of which Pliny says in such high praise, “that while they cover a woman, they at the same time reveal her charms,” were indeed so fine as to be transparent, and were sometimes dyed purple, and enriched with stripes of gold. They had their name from the early reputation which Cos acquired by its manufacture of silk. But silk was a very scarce article among the Romans for many ages, and so highly prized as to be valued at its weight in gold. Vospicius informs us that the Emperor Aurelian, who died A.D. 125, refused his empress a robe of silk, which she earnestly solicited, merely on account of its dearness. Galen, who lived about A.D. 173, speaks of the rarity of silk, being nowhere then but at Rome, and there only among the rich. Heliogabalus is said to have been the first Roman that wore a garment entirely of silk.

We learn from Tacitus, that early in the reign of Tiberius, about A.D. 17, the Senate enacted “that men should not defile themselves by wearing garments of silk.”[812] Pliny says, however, that in his time men had become so degenerate as to not even feel ashamed to wear garments of this material.[813]

The mode of producing and manufacturing silk was not known to Europe until long after the Christian era, being first learned about the year 555 by two Persian monks, who, under the encouragement of the Emperor Justinian, procured in India the eggs of the Silk-worm Moth, with which, concealing them in hollow canes, they hastened to Constantinople. They also brought with them instructions for hatching the eggs, rearing and feeding the worms, and drawing, spinning, and working the silk.[814]

From Constantinople, the culture of the Silk-worm spread over Greece, so that in less than five centuries that portion of this country, hitherto called the Peloponnesus, changed its denomination into that of Morea, from the immense plantations of the _Morus alba_, or white mulberry.[815] Large manufactories were set up at Athens, Thebes, and Corinth. The Venetians, soon after this, commencing a commerce with the Grecians, supplied all the western parts of Europe with silks for many centuries. Several kinds of modern silk manufactures, such as damasks, velvets, satins, etc., were as yet unknown.

About the year 1130, Roger II., King of Sicily, having conquered the Peloponnesus, transported the Silk-worms and such as cultivated them to Palermo and to Calabria. Such was the success of the speculation in Calabria, that it is doubtful whether, even at the present moment, it does not produce more silk than the whole of the rest of Italy.[816]

By degrees the rest of Italy, as well as Spain, learned from the Sicilians and Calabrians the management of Silk-worms and the working of silk; and at length, during the wars of Charles VIII., in 1499, the French acquired it, by right of neighborhood, and soon large plantations of the mulberry were raised in Provence. Henry I. is reported to have been the first French king who wore silk stockings. The invention, however, originally came from Spain, whence silk stockings were brought over to England to Henry VIII. and Edward VI.

It is stated, that at the celebration of the marriage between Margaret, daughter of Henry III., and Alexander III. of Scotland, in the year 1251, a most extravagant display of magnificence was made by one thousand English knights appearing in suits of silk. It appears also by the 33d of Henry VI., cap. 5, that there was a company of silk-women in England as early as the year 1455; but these were probably employed rather in embroidering and making small haberdasheries, than in the broad manufacture, which was not introduced till the year 1620.

Sir Thomas Gresham, in a letter to Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth’s great minister, dated Antwerp, April 30th, 1560, says: “I have written into Spain for silk hose both for you and my lady, your wife, to whom, it may please you, I may be remembered.” These silk hose, of a black color, were accordingly soon after sent by Gresham to Cecil.[817]

Hose were, in England, up to the time of Henry VIII., made out of ordinary cloth: the King’s own were formed of yard-wide taffata. It was only by chance that he might obtain a pair of silk hose from Spain. His son, Edward VI., received as a present from Sir Thomas Gresham--Stow speaks of it as a great present--“a pair of long Spanish silk stockings.” For some years longer, silk stockings continued to be a great rarity. “In the second year of Queen Elizabeth,” says Stow, “her silk-woman, Mistress Montague, presented her Majesty with a pair of black knit-silk stockings for a New-Year’s gift; the which, after a few days’ wearing, pleased her Highness so well, that she sent for Mistress Montague, and asked her where she had them, and if she could help her to any more; who answered, saying, ‘I made them very carefully, of purpose only for your Majesty, and, seeing these please you so well, I will presently set more in hand.’ ‘Do so,’ quoth the Queen, ‘for indeed I like silk stockings so well, because they are pleasant, fine, and delicate, that henceforth I will wear no more cloth stockings.’ And from that time to her death the Queen never wore cloth hose, but only silk stockings.”[818]

James I., while King of Scotland, is said to have once written to the Earl of Mar, one of his friends, to borrow a pair of silk stockings, in order to appear with becoming dignity before the English Ambassador; concluding his letter with these words: “For ye would not, sure, that your King should appear like a scrub before strangers.” This shows the great rarity of silk articles at that period in Scotland.

In 1629, the manufacture of silk was become so considerable in London, that the silk throwsters of the city and parts adjacent were incorporated; and in 1661, this company employed above forty thousand persons. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, contributed in a great degree to promote the manufacture of this article; and the invention of the silk-throwing machine at Derby, in 1719, added so much to the reputation of English manufactures, that even in Italy, according to Keysler, the English silks bore a higher price than the Italian.[819]

Rev. Stephen Olin tells us that the Mohammedans of Arabia will not allow strangers to look into their cocooneries, on account of their superstitious fear of the evil eye, of the influence of which the Silk-worms are thought to be peculiarly susceptible.[820]

The silk of the nests of the social caterpillar of the _Bombyx Madrona_, was an object of commerce in Mexico in the time of Montecusuma; and the ancient Mexicans pasted together the interior layers, which may be written upon without preparation, to form a white, glossy pasteboard. Handkerchiefs are still manufactured of it in the Intendency of Oaxaca.[821]

A complete nest of these Silk-worms, called in Brazil _sustillo_, was sent by the Academy of Sciences and Natural History to the King of Spain. The naturalist, Don Antonio Pineda, sent also a piece of this natural silk paper, measuring a yard and a half, of an elliptical shape, which, however, is peculiar to them all.[822]

The Chinese fix on rings with threads the females of two species of wild _Bombyx_, whose caterpillars produce silk, and place these insects on a tree, or on some body situated in the open air, to allow the males, guided by their scent, to visit them.[823]

“The manner of the Chinese is,” we read in Purchas’s Pilgrims, “in the Spring time to revive the Silke-worms (that lye dead all the Winter) by laying them in the warme sunne, and (to hasten their quickening, that they may sooner goe to worke) to put them into bagges, and so hang them under their childrens armes.”[824]

In China, the pupæ of the Silk-worms after the silk is wound off, and the larvæ of a species of Sphinx-moth, furnish articles for the table, and are considered delicacies.[825] The natives of Madagascar, who eat all kinds of insects, consider also Silk-worms a great luxury.[826]

Aldrovandus states that the German soldiers sometimes fry and eat Silk-worms.[827]

Dr. James says: “Silk-worms dried, and reduced to a powder, are, by some, applied to the crown of the head for removing vertigos and convulsions. The silk, and case or coat, are of a due temperament between heat and cold, and corroborate and recruit the vital, natural, and animal spirits.”[828] The cocoons are also the basis of Goddard’s _Drops_, and enter into several other compositions, such as the _Confectio de Hyacintho_, when made in the best manner.[829]

With respect to the coloring of silk, we find in “Tseën Tse Wan,” or thousand character classic, a work that has been a school-book in China for the last 1200 years, that an ancient sage by the name of Mih, seeing the white silk colored, wept on account of its original purity being destroyed.[830]

Some of the eggs of a wild species of Silk-worm being sent overland from China to Paris, proved a source of considerable anxiety to different parties who received them during the transit, the instructions on the box, instead of simply stating that it contained the eggs of the _wild_ Silk-worm Moth, was couched in the following manner by the French savant who forwarded them: “Must be kept far from the engines; this box contains _savage_ worms.”[831]

About twenty-five years ago, during a mania for rearing Silk-worms, to meet the demand for the eggs of these insects, fish-spawn was distributed throughout the country. The humbug was quite as successful as it was curious.

It has been said that the search after the “Golden Fleece” may be ascribed to the desire to obtain silk.[832]

As a protection against rifle-balls, the Chinese, who were engaged in the rebellion of 1853, state that they wore dresses thickly padded with floss silk; they said that while the ball had a twist in it, revolving in its course, it caught up the silk and fastened itself in the garment. One man declared that he took out six so caught, in one day, after a severe fight. They said the dress was of more use within a hundred yards than at long range, when the ball had lost its revolving motion.[833]

Vaucanson, the inventor of the famous “automaton duck,” to revenge himself upon the silk-weavers of Lyons, who had stoned him because he attempted to simplify the ordinary loom, is said to have invented a loom on which a donkey worked silken cloth.[834]

The following curious Welsh epigram on the Silk-worm is composed entirely of vowels, and can be recited without closing or moving lips or teeth:

O’i wiw wy i ê â, a’i weuaw
O’i wyau y weua;
E’ weua ei wî aia’,
A’i weuau yw ieuau iâ.

I perish by my art; dig mine own grave;
I spin the thread of life; my death I weave.[835]

Arctiidæ--Wooly-bear Moths.

In 1783, the larvæ of the Moth, _Arctia chrysorrhœa_, were so destructive in the neighborhood of London that subscriptions were opened to employ the poor in cutting off and collecting the webs; and it is asserted that not less than eighty bushels were collected and burnt in one day in the parish of Clapham. And even in some places prayers were offered up in the churches to avert the calamities of which they were supposed by the ignorant to be the forerunner.[836]

If a caterpillar spins its cocoon in a house, it foretells its desolation by death; if in your clothes, it warns you you will wear a shroud before the year is out. This superstition obtains in the Middle States, Virginia, and Maryland.

If Moths, flying in a candle, put it out, it forebodes a calamity amounting to almost death. This superstition is pretty general.

Why Moths fly in a candle: Kempfer tells us, there is found in Japan an insect, which, by reason of its incomparable beauty, is kept by the Japanese ladies among the curiosities of their toilets. He calls it a Night-fly, and describes it as being “about a finger long, slender, round-bodied, with four wings, two of which are transparent and hid under a pair of others, which are shining as it were polished, and most curiously adorned with blue and golden lines and spots.” The following little fable, which accounts so beautifully for the flying of Moths in a candle, owes its origin to the unparalleled beauty of this insect, and is well worthy of being preserved: The Japanese say that all other Night-flies (Moths, etc.) fall in love with this particular one, who, to get rid of their importunities, maliciously bids them, under the pretense of trying their constancy, to go and bring to her fire. And the blind lovers, scrupling not to obey her command, fly to the nearest fire or candle, in which they never fail to burn themselves to death.[837]

The following verses, embodying the above fable (except in several minor particulars) are from the pen of Mrs. A. L. Ruter Dufour:

One summer night, says a legend old,
A Moth a Firefly sought to woo:
“Oh, wed me, I pray, thou bright star-child,
To win thee there’s nothing I’d dare not do.”

“If thou art sincere,” the Firefly cried,
“Go--bring me a light that will equal my own;
Not until then will I deign be thy bride;”--
Undaunted the Moth heard her mocking tone.

Afar he beheld a brilliant torch,
Forward he dashed, on rapid wing,
Into the light to bear it hence;--
When he fell a scorched and blighted thing.--

Still ever the Moths in hope to win,
Unheeding the lesson, the gay Firefly,
Dash, reckless, the dazzling torch within,
And, vainly striving, fall and die!

WASHINGTON, D. C., June 24, 1864.

Moufet says: “Our North, as well as our West countrymen, call it (the Moth, _Phalaina_) _Saule_, _i.e._ _Psychen, Animam_, the soul; because some silly people in old time did fancy that the souls of the dead did fly about in the night seeking light.”[838] “Pliny commends a goat’s liver to drive them away, yet he shews not the means to use it.”[839]

One of the most highly prized curiosities in the collection of Horace Walpole, was the silver bell with which the popes used to curse the caterpillars. This bell was the work of Benvenuto Cellini, one of the most extraordinary men of his extraordinary age, and the relievos on it representing caterpillars, butterflies, and other insects, are said to have been wonderfully executed.[840]

In Purchas’s Pilgrims, we read of worms being sprinkled with holy water to kill them.[841]

Apuleius says, that if you take the caterpillars from another garden, and boil them in water with anethum, and let them cool, and besprinkle the herbs, you will destroy the existing caterpillars.[842]

Pliny says, that “if a woman having a catamenia strips herself naked, and walks round a field of wheat, the caterpillars, worms, beetles, and other vermin, will fall off the ears of the grain!” This important discovery, according to Metrodurus of Scepsos, was first made in Cappadocia; where, in consequence of such multitudes of “Cantharides” being found to breed there, it was the practice for women to walk through the middle of the fields with their garments tucked up above the thighs.[843] Columella[844] has described this practice in verse, and Ælian[845] also mentions it. Pliny says further that in other places, again, it is the usage of women to go barefoot, with the hair disheveled and the girdle loose: due precaution, however, he seriously observes, must be taken that this is not done at sunrise, for if so the crop will wither and dry up.[846] Apuleius,[847] Columella,[848] and Palladius[849] relate the same story. Constantinus, likewise, whose verses, as translated in Moufet’s Theater of Insects, are as follows:

But if against this plague no art prevail,
The Trojan arts will do’t, when others fail.
A woman barefoot with her hair untied,
And naked breasts must walk as if she cried,
And after Venus’ sports she must surround
Ten times, the garden beds and orchard ground.
When she hath done, ’tis wonderful to see,
The caterpillars fall off from the tree,
As fast as drops of rain, when with a crook,
For acorns or apples the tree is shook.[850]

This remarkable superstitious remedy for destroying caterpillars was frequently practiced by the Indians of America. Schoolcraft, treating of the peculiar superstitions connected with the menstrual lodge of these people, says:

“This superstition does not alone exert a malign influence, or spell, on the human species. Its ominous power, or charm, is equally effective on the animate creation, at least on those species which are known to depredate on their little fields and gardens. To cast a protective spell around these, and secure the fields against vermin, insects, the sciurus, and other species, as well as to protect the crops against blight, the mother of the family chooses a suitable hour at night, when the children are at rest and the sky is overcast, and having completely divested herself of her garments, trails her _machecota_ behind her, and performs the circuit of the little field.”[851]

The fat of bears, says Topsel, “some use superstitiously beaten with oil, wherewith they anoynt their grape-sickles when they go to vintage, perswading themselves that if nobody know thereof, their tender vine-branches shall never be consumed by caterpillars. Others attribute this to the vertue of bears’ blood.”[852]

Nicander used “a caterpillar to procure sleep: for so he writes; and Hieremias Martius thus translates him:

Stamp but with oyl those worms that eat the leaves,
Whose backs are painted with a greenish hue,
Anoint your body with ’t, and whilst that cleaves,
You shall with gentle sleep bid cares adieu.”[853]

Of a caterpillar that feeds upon cabbage leaves, the _Eruca officinalis_ of Schroder, Dr. James says: “Bruised, or a powder of them, raise a blister like cantharides, and take off the skin. Moufet says, they will cause the teeth to fall out of their sockets, and Hippocrates writes, that they are good for a Quinsey.”[854]

Psychidæ--Wood-carrying Moth, etc.

The larvæ of the Wood-carrying Moth (of the genus _Oiketicus_, or _Eumeta_, Wlk.) of Ceylon, surround themselves with cases made of stems of leaves, and thorns or pieces of twigs bound together by threads, till the whole resembles a miniature Roman fasces; in fact, an African species of these insects has obtained the name of “Lictor.” The Germans have denominated the group _Sackträger_, and the Singhalese call them Darra-kattea or “billets of fire-wood,” and regard the inmates, Tennent says, as human beings, who, as a punishment for stealing wood in some former state of existence, have been condemned to undergo a metempsychosis under the form of these insects.[855]

Noctuidæ--Antler-moth, Cut-worm, etc.

The Antler-moth, _Noctua graminis_, Linn., has been particularly observed in Sweden, Norway, Northern Germany, and even in Greenland, where it does great mischief to grass-plots and meadows. It is recorded to have done very great injury in the eastern mountains of Georgenthal, as well as at Töplitz in Bohemia, where larvæ were in such large numbers that in four days and a half 200 men found 23 bushels of them, or 4,500,000 in the 60 bushels of mould which they examined. In Germany it seems to be confined to high and dry districts, and it never appears there in wet meadows, but its devastations are sometimes most extensive, as happened in the Hartz territory in 1816 and ’17, when whole hills that in the evening were clad in the finest green, were brown and bare the following morning; and such vast numbers of the caterpillars were there that the ruts of the roads leading to the hills were full of them, and the roads being covered with them were even rendered slippery and dirty by their being crushed in some places.[856]

The notorious astrologer, William Lilly, alluding to the comet which appeared in 1677, says: “All comets signify wars, terrors, and strange events in the world;” and gives the following curious explanation of the prophetic nature of these bodies: “The spirits, well knowing what accidents shall come to pass, do form a star or comet, and give it what figure or shape they please, and cause its motion through the air, that people might behold it, and thence draw a signification of its events.” Further, a comet appearing in the Taurus portends “mortality to the greater part of cattle, as horses, oxen, cows, etc.,” and also “prodigious shipwrecks, damage in fisheries, monstrous floods, and destruction of fruit by caterpillars and other vermin.”[857]

Josselyn, in the account of his voyage to New England, printed in London in 1674, has the following relation of an insect which is doubtless a species of _Agrotis_, probably the _Agrotis telifera_: “There is also (in New England) a dark dunnish Worm or Bug of the bigness of an Oaten-straw, and an inch long, that in the Spring lye at the Root of Corn and Garden plants all day, and in the night creep out and devour them; these in some years destroy abundance of _Indian_ Corn and Garden plants, and they have but one way to be rid of them, which the _English_ have learned of the Indians; And because it is somewhat strange, I shall tell you how it is, they go out into a field or garden with a Birchen-dish, and spudling the earth about the roots, for they lye not deep, they gather their dish full which may contain a quart or three pints, then they carrie the dish to the Sea-side when it is ebbing water and set it a swimming, the water carrieth the dish into the Sea, and within a day or two you go into your field you may look your eyes out sooner than find any of them.”[858]

The Army-worm (larva of _Leucania unipunctata_ of Haworth), during this our great rebellion, is thought, by many persons in Western Pennsylvania, to prognosticate the success or defeat of our armies by the direction it travels. If toward the North, the South will be victorious; and if toward the South, the North will conquer. An old gentleman, who believes that a frog’s foot drawn in chalk above the door will keep away witches, tells me this worm invariably travels southward.

This larva was noticed but a few years before the war began, and then appearing, as it were, in armies, it was called the Army-worm. The superstitious omen from it has followed not preceded the name.

Lindenbrog, in his Codex Legum Antiquarum, cum Glossario, fol. Francof. 1613, mentions the following superstition: “The peasants, in many places in Germany, at the feast of St. John, bind a rope around a stake drawn from a hedge, and drive it hither and thither, till it catches fire. This they carefully feed with stubble and dry wood heaped together, and they spread the collected ashes over their potherbs, confiding in vain superstition, that by this means they can drive away Canker-worms. They therefore call this Nodfeur, q. _necessary fire_.”

These fires were condemned as sacrilegious, not as if it had been thought that there was anything unlawful in kindling a fire in this manner, but because it was kindled with a superstitious design. They are, however, Du Cange says, still kindled in France, on the eve of St. John’s day.[859]

Geometridæ--Span-worms.

The Measuring-worm, crawling on your clothes, is thought to foretell a new suit; on your hands, a pair of gloves, etc.

Tineidæ--Clothes’-moth, Bee-moth, etc.

In Newton’s Journal of the Arts for December, 1827, there is the following mention of a new kind of cloth fabricated by insects: The larvæ of the Moth, _Tinea punctata_, or _T. padilla_, have been directed by M. Habenstreet, of Munich, so as to work on a paper model suspended from a ceiling of a room. To this model he can give any form and dimensions, and he has thus been enabled to obtain square shawls, an air balloon four feet high, and a woman’s complete robe, with the sleeves, but without seams. One or two larvæ can weave a square inch of cloth. A great number are, of course, employed, and their motions are interdicted from the parts of the model not to be covered, by oiling them. The cloth exceeds in fineness the lightest gauze, and has been worn as a robe over her court dress by the Queen of Bavaria.[860]

Authors are of opinion that the ancients possessed some secret for preserving garments from the Moth, _Tinia tapetzella_. We are told the robes of Servius Tullius were found in perfect preservation at the death of Sejanus, an interval of more than five hundred years. Pliny gives as a precaution “to lay garments on a coffin;” others recommend “cantharides hung up in a house, or wrapping them in a lion’s skin”--“the poor little insects,” says Reaumur, “being probably placed in bodily fear of this terrible animal.”[861]

Moufet says: “They that sell woollen clothes use to wrap up the skin of a bird called the king’s-fisher among them, or else hang one in the shop, as a thing by a secret antipathy that Moths cannot endure.”[862]

Among the various contrivances resorted to as a safeguard against the Bee-moth, _Galleria cereana_, Fabricius, perhaps the most ingenious is that, mentioned by Langstroth, of “governing the entrances of all the hives by a long lever-like _hen-roost_, so that they may be regularly closed by the crowing and cackling tribe when they go to bed at night, and opened again when they fly from their perch to greet the merry morn.”[863]

An intelligent man informed Langstroth that he paid ten dollars to a “Bee-quack” professing to have an infallible secret for protecting Bees against the Moth; and, after the quack had departed with his money, learned that the secret consisted in “always keeping strong stocks.”[864]

ORDER VII.

HOMOPTERA.

Cicadidæ--Harvest-flies.

The Cicadas, _C. plebeja_, Linn., called by the ancient Greeks, (by whom, as well as by the Chinese, they were kept in cages for the sake of their song,) _Tettix_, seem to have been the favorites of every Grecian bard, from Homer and Hesiod to Anacreon and Theocritus. Supposed to be perfectly harmless, and to live only upon dew, they were addressed by the most endearing epithets, and were regarded as almost divine. Thus sings the muse of Anacreon:

Happy creature! what below
Can more happy live than thou?
Seated on thy leafy throne,
Summer weaves thy verdant crown.
Sipping o’er the pearly lawn,
The fragrant nectar of the dawn,
Little tales thou lov’st to sing,
Tales of mirth--an insect king.
Thine the treasures of the field,
All thy own the seasons yield;
Nature paints thee for the year,
Songster to the shepherds dear;
Innocent, of placid fame,
What of man can boast the same?
Thine the loudest voice of praise,
Harbinger of fruitful days;
Darling of the tuneful nine,
Phœbus is thy sire divine;
Phœbus to thy note has given
Music from the spheres of heaven;
Happy most as first of earth,
All thy hours are peace and mirth;
Cares nor pains to thee belong,
Thou alone art ever young.
Thine the pure immortal vein,
Blood nor flesh thy life sustain;
Rich in spirits--health thy feast,
Thou art a demi-god at least.

But the old witticism, attributed to the incorrigible Rhodian sensualist, Xenarchus, gives quite a different reason to account for the supposed happiness of these insects:

Happy the Cicadas’ lives,
Since they all have voiceless wives![865]

Plutarch, reasoning upon that singular Pythagorean precept which forbid the wife to admit swallows in the house, remarks: “Consider, and see whether the swallow be not odious and impious ... because she feedeth upon flesh, and, besides, killeth and devoureth especially grasshoppers (Cicadas), which are sacred and musical.”[866]

The Athenians were so attached to the Cicadas, that their elders were accustomed to fasten golden images of them in their hair. Thucidides incidentally remarks that this custom ceased but a little before his time. He adds, also, that the fashion prevailed, too, for a long time with the elders of the Ionians, from their affinity to the Athenians.[867]

This singular form, for their ornamental combs, seems to have been adopted originally from the predilection of the Athenians for whatever bore any affinity to themselves, who boasted of being autochthones or aboriginal. It is sung of the Athenians:

Blithe race! whose mantles were bedeck’d
With golden grasshoppers, in sign that they
Had sprung, like those bright creatures, from the soil
Whereon their endless generations dwelt.

Mr. Michell supposes the Athenians to have imitated in this instance their prototypes, the Egyptians; for as they, he adds, wore their favorite symbol, the Scarabæus, in this manner, so Attic pride set up a rival in the head-dress thus introduced by Cecrops and his followers.[868]

From a very ancient writer,[869] we have similar ornaments ascribed to the Samians. They also most probably derived this fashion from the early Athenians.[870]

It seems, from the following lines of Asius,[871] that Cicadas were also worn as ornaments on dresses:

Clad in magnificent robes, whose snow-white folds
Reach’d to the ground of the extensive earth,
And golden knobs on them like grasshoppers.

The sound of the Cicada and that of the harp were called by the Greeks by one and the same name; and a Cicada sitting upon a harp was the usual emblem of the science of music. This was accounted for by the following very pleasing and elegant tale: Two rival musicians, Eunomis of Locris and Aristo of Rhegium, when alternately playing upon the harp, the former was so unfortunate as to break a string of his instrument, and by which accident would certainly have lost the prize, when a Cicada, flying to him and sitting upon his harp, supplied the place of the broken string with its melodious voice, and so secured to him an easy victory over his antagonist.[872]