Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions Part 29

The larvae of this insect, says Mr. Clark, are mostly known among the country people by the name of _wormals_, _wormuls_, _warbles_, or, more properly, _Bots_. And our ancestors erroneously imagined that poverty or improper food engendered them in horses. The truth, however, seems to be, that when the animal is kept without food the Bots are also, and are then, without doubt, most troublesome; whence it was very naturally supposed that poverty or bad food was the parent of them.[1013]

A cow with its hide perforated by Warbles, in England, was said to be elf-shot: the holes being made by the arrows of the little malignant fairies. In the Northern Antiquities, p. 404, we find the following:

"If at such a time you were to look through an elf-bore in wood, where a thorter knot has been taken out, or through the hole made by an elf-arrow (which has probably been made by a Warble) in the skin of a beast that has been elf-shot, you may see the elf-bull naiging (b.u.t.ting) with the strongest bull or ox in the herd; but you will never see with that eye again."

In the Scottish history of the trials of witches, we find the following: Alexander Smaill offended Jonet c.o.c.k, who threatened him, "deare sail yow rewe it! and within half ane howre therafter, going to the pleugh,--befoir he had gone one about, their came ane great Wasp or Bee, so that the foir horses did runne away with the pleugh, and wer liklie to have killed themselves, and the said Alexander and the boy that was with him, narrowlie escaped with their lyves."[1014] Possibly the incident is not exaggerated, as a single strus will turn the oxen of a whole herd, and render them furious.

Spencer, in his Travels in Circa.s.sia, speaks of a poisonous Fly, known in Hungary under the name of the Golubaeser-fly, which is singularly destructive to cattle. The Hungarian peasants, to account for the severity of the bite of this insect, tell us that in the caverns, near the Castle of Golubaes, the renowned champion, St. George, killed the dragon, and that its decomposed remains have continued to generate these insects down to the present day. So firmly did they believe this, that they closed up the mouths of the caverns with stone walls.[1015]

ORDER X.

APHANIPTERA.

Pulicidae--Fleas.

The name _Pulex_, given to the Flea by the Romans, is stated by Isodorus to have been derived from _pulvis_, dust, _quasi pulveris filius_. Our English name _Flea_, and the German _Flock_, are evidently deduced from the quick motions of this insect.

As to the origin of Fleas, Moufet had a similar notion to that contained in the word Pulex, if we adopt the etymology of Isodorus, for he says they are produced from the dust, especially when moistened with urine, the smallest ones springing from putrid matter. Scaliger relates that they are produced from the moistened humors among the hairs of dogs.[1016] Conformable to the curious notion of Moufet, Shakspeare says:

_2 Car._ I think this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas: I am stung like a tench.

_1 Car._ Like a tench? by the ma.s.s, there is ne'er a king in Christendom could be better bit than I have been since the first c.o.c.k.

_2 Car._ Why, they will allow us ne'er a jorden, and then we leak in your chimney; and your _chamber-ley breeds fleas_ like a loach.[1017]

"Martyr, the author of the Decads of Navigation, writes, that in Perienna, a countrey of the Indies, the drops of sweat that fall from their slaves' bodies will presently turn to Fleas."[1018]

Ewlin, in his book of Travels in Turkey, has recorded a singular tradition of the history of the Flea and its confraternity, as preserved among a sect of Kurds, who dwelt in his time at the foot of Mount Sindshar. "When Noah's Ark," says the legend, "sprung a leak by striking against a rock in the vicinity of Mount Sindshar, and Noah despaired altogether of safety, the serpent promised to help him out of his mishap if he would engage to feed him upon human flesh after the deluge had subsided. Noah pledged himself to do so; and the serpent coiling himself up, drove his body into the fracture and stopped the leak. When the pluvious element was appeased, and all were making their way out of the ark, the serpent insisted upon the fulfillment of the pledge he had received; but Noah, by Gabriel's advice, committed the pledge to the flames, and scattering its ashes in the air, there arose out of them Fleas, Flies, Lice, Bugs, and all such sort of vermin as prey upon human blood, and after this fashion was Noah's pledge redeemed."[1019]

The Sandwich Islanders have the following tradition in regard to the introduction of Fleas into their country: Many years ago a woman from Waimea went out to a ship to see her lover, and as she was about to return, he gave her a bottle, saying that there was very little valuable property (_waiwai_) contained in it, but that she must not open it, on any account, until she reached the sh.o.r.e. As soon as she gained the beach, she eagerly uncorked the bottle to examine her treasure, but nothing was to be discovered,--the Fleas hopped out, and "they have gone on hopping and biting ever since."[1020]

Our pigmy tormentor, _Pulex irritans_, in the opinion of some, seems to have been regarded as an agreeable rather than a repulsive object. "Dear Miss," said a lively old lady to a friend of Kirby and Spence (who had the misfortune to be confined to her bed by a broken limb, and was complaining that the Fleas tormented her), "don't you like _Fleas_?

Well, I think they are the prettiest little merry things in the world.--I never saw a dull Flea in all my life."[1021] Dr. Townson, as mentioned by the above writers, from the encomium which he bestows upon these vigilant little vaulters, as supplying the place of an alarum and driving us from the bed of sloth, should seem to have regarded them with the same happy feelings.[1022]

When Ray and Willughby were traveling, they found "at Venice and Augsburg Fleas for sale, and at a small price too, decorated with steel or silver collars around their necks, of which Willughby purchased one.

When they are kept in a box amongst wool or cloth, in a warm place, and fed once a day, they will live a long time. When they begin to suck they erect themselves almost perpendicularly, thrusting their sucker, which originates in the middle of the forehead, into the skin. The itching is not felt immediately, but a little afterwards. As soon as they are full of blood, they begin to void a portion of it, and thus, if permitted, they will continue for many hours sucking and voiding. After the first itching no uneasiness is subsequently felt. Willughby's Flea lived for three months by sucking in this manner the blood of his hand; it was at length killed by the cold of winter."[1023]

We read in Purchas's Pilgrims that a city of the Miantines is said to have been dispeopled by Fleas;[1024] and Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, who found these insects more tormenting than all the other plagues of the Missouri country, say they sometimes here compel even the natives to shift their quarters.[1025]

Dr. Clarke was informed by an Arab Sheikh that "the king of the Fleas held his court at Tiberias."[1026]

To prevent Fleas from breeding, Pliny gives the following curious recipe: "Since I have made mention of the cuckow," says this writer, "there comes into my mind a strange and miraculous matter that the said magicians report of this bird; namely, that if a man, the first time that he heareth her to sing, presently stay his right foot in the very place where it was when he heard her, and withal mark out the point and just proportion of the said foot upon the ground as it stood, and then digg up the earth under it within the said compa.s.se, look what chamber or roume of the house is strewed with the said mould, there will no Fleas bread there."[1027]

Thomas Hill, in his Naturall and Artificiall Conclusions, printed 1650, quotes this pa.s.sage from Pliny, calling it "A very easie and merry conceit to keep off fleas from your beds or chambers."[1028]

The Hungarian shepherds grease their linen with hogs' lard, and thus render themselves so disgusting even to the Fleas and Lice, as to put them effectually to flight.[1029]

There is still shown in the a.r.s.enal at Stockholm a diminutive piece of ordnance, four or five inches in length, with which, report says, on the authority of Linnaeus, the celebrated Queen Christiana used to cannonade Fleas.[1030]

But, seriously, if you wish for an effectual remedy, that prescribed by old Tusser, in his Points of Goode Husbandry, in the following lines, will answer your purpose:

While wormwood hath seed, get a handfull or twaine, To save against March, to make flea to refraine: Where chamber is sweeped and wormwood is strown, No flea for his life dare abide to be known.

The inhabitants of Dalecarlia place the skins of hares in their apartments, in which the Fleas willingly take refuge, so that they are easily destroyed by the immersion of the skin in scalding water.[1031]

Pamphilius among others gives the following remedies against Fleas: If a person, he says, sets a dish in the middle of the house, and draws a line around it with an iron sword (it will be better if the sword has done execution), and if he sprinkles the rest of the house, excepting the place circ.u.mscribed, with an irrigation of staphisagria, or of powdered leaves of the bay-tree, they having been boiled in brine or in sea-water, he will bring all the Fleas together into the dish. A jar also being set in the ground with its edge even with the pavement, and smeared with bulls' fat, will attract all the Fleas, even those that are in the wardrobe. If you enter a place where there are Fleas, express the usual exclamation of distress, and they will not touch you. Make a small trench under a bed, and pour goats' blood into it, and it will bring all the Fleas together, and it will allure those from your clothing. Fleas may be removed also, concludes this writer, from the most villous and from the thickest pieces of tapestry, whither, they betake themselves when full, if goats' blood is set in a vessel or in a cork.[1032]

Moufet says: "A Gloeworm, set in the middle of the house, drives away Fleas."[1033]

On the subject of destroying Fleas, the following pleasant piece of satire, by Poor Humphrey, will be read with a smile: "A notable projector became notable by one project only, which was a certain specific for the killing of fleas, and it was in form of a powder, and sold in papers, with plain directions for use, as followeth: The flea was to be held conveniently between the thumb and finger of the left hand; and to the end of the trunk or proboscis, which protrudeth in the flea, somewhat as the elephant's doth, a very small quant.i.ty of the powder was to be put from between the thumb and finger of the right hand. And the deviser undertook, if any flea to whom his powder was so administered should prove to have afterwards bitten a purchaser who used it, then that purchaser should have another paper of the said powder gratis. And it chanced that the first paper thereof was bought idly, as it were, by an old woman, and she, without meaning to injure the inventor, or his remedy, but, of her mere harmlessness, did innocently ask him, whether, when she had caught the flea, and after she had got it, as before described, if she should kill it with her nail it would not be as well. Whereupon the ingenious inventor was so astonished by the question, that, not knowing what to answer on the sudden occasion, he said with truth to this effect, that without doubt her way would do, too. And according to the belief of Poor Humphrey, there is not as yet any device more certain or better for destroying a flea, when thou hast captured him, than the ancient manner of the old woman's, or instead thereof, the drowning of him in fair water, if thou hast it by thee at the time."[1034]

The old English hunters report that foxes are full of Fleas, and they tell the following queer story how they get rid of them: "The fox," say they, as recorded by Mouffet, "gathers some handfuls of wool from thorns and briars, and wrapping it up, he holds it fast in his mouth, then goes by degrees into a cold river, and dipping himself close by little and little, when he finds that all the Fleas are crept so high as his head for fear of drowning, and so for shelter crept into the wool, he barks and spits out the wool, full of Fleas, and so very froliquely being delivered from their molestation, he swims to land."[1035]

Ramsay thus alludes to this story:

Then sure the la.s.ses, and ilk gaping coof, Wad rin about him, and had out their loof.

_M._ As fast as fleas skip to the tale of woo, Whilk slee Tod Lowrie (the fox) hads without his mow, When he to drown them, and his hips to cool, In summer days slides backward in a pool.[1036]

Preceding this story, Mouffet makes the following observations: "The lesser, leaner, and younger they are, the sharper they bite, the fat ones being more inclined to tickle and play; and then are not the least plague, especially when in greater numbers, since they molest men that are sleeping, and trouble wearied and sick persons; from whom they escape by skipping; for as soon as they find they are arraigned to die, and feel the finger coming, on a sudden they are gone, and leap here and there, and so escape the danger; but so soon as day breaks, they forsake the bed. They then creep into the rough blankets, or hide themselves in rushes and dust, lying in ambush for pigeons, hens, and other birds, also for men and dogs, moles and mice, and vex such as pa.s.se by."[1037]

It is frequently affirmed that a.s.ses are never troubled with Fleas or other vermin; and, among the superst.i.tious, it is said that it is all owing to the riding of Christ upon one of these animals.[1038]

Willsford, in his Nature's Secrets, printed 1658, p. 130, says: "The little sable beast (called a _Flea_), if much thirsting after blood, it argues rain."[1039]

It is related that the Devil, teasing St. Domingo in the shape of a Flea, skipped upon his book, when the saint fixed him as a mark where he left off, and continued to use him so through the volume.[1040]

Fleas infesting beds were attributed to the envy of the Devil.[1041]

Giles Fletcher says that Iwan Yasilowich sent to the City of Moscow to provide for him a measure full of Fleas for a medicine. They answered that it was impossible, and if they could get them, yet they could not measure them because of their leaping out. Upon which he set a mulct upon the city of seven thousand rubles.[1042]

We read in Purchas's Pilgrims that the Jews were not permitted to burn Fleas in the flame of their lamps on Sabbath evenings.[1043]

The muscular power of the Flea is so great that it can leap to the distance of two hundred times its own length, which will appear the more surprising when we consider that a man, were he endowed with equal strength and agility, would be able to leap between three and four hundred yards. Aristophanes, in his usual licentious way, ridicules the great Socrates for his pretended experiments on this great muscular power:

_Disciple._ That were not lawful to reveal to strangers.

_Strepsiades._ Speak boldly then as to a fellow-student; For therefore am I come.

_Disc._ Then I will speak; But set it down among our mysteries.

It is a question put to Chaerophon By our great master Socrates to answer, How many of his own lengths at a spring A Flea can hop; for one by chance had skipp'd Straight from the brow of Chaerophon to th' head Of Socrates.

_Streps._ And how did then the sage Contrive to measure this?