Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions Part 23

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

"This superst.i.tion 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 superst.i.tiously beaten with oil, wherewith they anoynt their grape-sickles when they go to vintage, perswading themselves that if n.o.body 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]

Psychidae--Wood-carrying Moth, etc.

The larvae 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 _Sacktrager_, 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]

Noctuidae--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 gra.s.s-plots and meadows. It is recorded to have done very great injury in the eastern mountains of Georgenthal, as well as at Toplitz in Bohemia, where larvae 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 pa.s.s, 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 superst.i.tious omen from it has followed not preceded the name.

Lindenbrog, in his Codex Legum Antiquarum, c.u.m Glossario, fol. Francof.

1613, mentions the following superst.i.tion: "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 superst.i.tion, 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 superst.i.tious design. They are, however, Du Cange says, still kindled in France, on the eve of St.

John's day.[859]

Geometridae--Span-worms.

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

Tineidae--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 larvae 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 larvae 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 Seja.n.u.s, 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.

h.o.m.oPTERA.

Cicadidae--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, Phbus is thy sire divine; Phbus 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-G.o.d 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 gra.s.shoppers (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 gra.s.shoppers, in sign that they Had sprung, like those bright creatures, from the soil Whereon their endless generations dwelt.

Mr. Mich.e.l.l supposes the Athenians to have imitated in this instance their prototypes, the Egyptians; for as they, he adds, wore their favorite symbol, the Scarabaeus, 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 k.n.o.bs on them like gra.s.shoppers.

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]

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