Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions Part 33

A South Northamptonshire superst.i.tion of the present day is, that, in order to propitiate money-spinners, they must be thrown over the left shoulder.[1147]

It is most probable that Euclio, in Plautus' Aulularia, would not suffer the Spiders to be molested because they were considered to bring good luck.

_Staphyla._ Here in our house there's nothing else for thieves to gain, so filled is it with emptiness and cobwebs.

_Euclio._ You hag of hags, I choose those cobwebs to be watched for me.[1148]

A superst.i.tion prevails among us that if a Spider approaches, either by crawling toward or descending from the ceiling to a person, it forebodes good to such person; and, on the contrary, if the Spider runs hurriedly away, it is an omen of bad luck. But if the Spider be a poisonous one, or a Fly-catcher, and it approaches you, some evil is about to befall you, which to avert you must cross your heart thrice.

If you kill a Spider crossing your path, you will have bad luck.

A Spider should not be killed in your house, but out of doors; if in the house, our country people say you are "pulling down your house."

If a Spider drops down from its web or from a tree directly in front of a person, such person will see before night a dear friend.

A variety of this superst.i.tion is, that, if the Spider be white, it foretells the acquaintance of a friend; and if black, an enemy.

In the Netherlands, a Spider seen in the morning forebodes good luck; in the afternoon, bad luck.[1149]

There is a common saying at Winchester, England, that no Spider will hang its web on the roof of Irish oak in the chapel or cloisters;[1150]

and the cicerone, who shows the cathedral church at St. David's, points out to the visitor that the choir is roofed with Irish oak, which does not harbor Spiders, though cobwebs are plentifully seen in other parts of the cathedral.[1151] This superst.i.tion (for it certainly is nothing more)[1152] probably originated with the old story of St. Patrick's having exorcised and banished all kinds of vermin from Ireland.

The same virtue of repelling Spiders is attributed also to chestnut and cedar wood;[1153] and the old roof at Turner's Court, in Gloucestershire, four miles from Bath, which is of chestnut, is said to be perfectly free from cobwebs;[1154] hence also are the cloisters of New College, and of Christ's Church, in England, roofed with chestnut.[1155]

A small Spider of a red color, called a Tainct in England, is accounted, by the country people, a deadly poison to cows and horses; so when any of their cattle die suddenly and swell up, to account for their deaths, they say they have "licked a Tainct." Browne thinks this is, most probably, but a vulgar error.[1156]

It is a very ancient and curious belief that there exists a remarkable enmity between the Spider and serpents,[1157] and more especially between the Spider and the toad; and many curious stories are told of the combats between these animals. The following, related by Erasmus, which he a.s.serts he had directly from one of the spectators, is probably the most remarkable, and we insert it in the words of Dr. James: "A person (a monk)[1158] lying along upon the floor of his chamber in the summer-time to sleep in a supine posture, when a toad, creeping out of some green rushes, brought just before in to adorn the chimney, gets upon his face and with his feet sits across his lips. To force off the toad, says the historian, would have been accounted death to the sleeper; and to leave her there, very cruel and dangerous; so that upon consultation, it was concluded to find out a Spider, which, together with her web and the window she was fastened to, was brought carefully, and so contrived as to be held perpendicularly to the man's face; which was no sooner done but the Spider, discovering his enemy, let himself down and struck in his dart, afterward betaking himself up again to his web: the toad swelled, but as yet kept his station. The second wound is given quickly after by the Spider, upon which he swells yet more, but remained alive still. The Spider, coming down again by his thread, gives the third blow, and the toad, taking off his feet from over the man's mouth, fell off dead."[1159]

The following cosmogony is found in the sacred writings of the Pundits of India: A certain immense Spider was the origin, the first cause of all things; which, drawing the matter from its own bowels, wove the web of this universe, and disposed it with wonderful art; she, in the mean time, sitting in the center of her work, feels and directs the motion of every part, till at length, when she has pleased herself sufficiently in ordering and contemplating this web, she draws all the threads she had spun out again into herself; and, having absorbed them, the universal nature of all creatures vanishes into nothing.[1160]

Among the Chululahs of our western coast, Capt. Stuart informs me there is a vague superst.i.tion that the Spider is connected with the origin of the world. To what extent this curious notion prevails, or anything more concerning it, I have been unable to learn.

The natives of Guinea, says Bosman, believe that the first men were created by the large black Spider, which is so common in their country, and called in their jargon "Ananse;" nor is there any reasoning, continues this traveler, a great number of them out of it.[1161] Barbot also remarks that, in the belief of the Guinea negroes, the black Ananse created the first man.[1162]

That the Spider should be connected with the origin of the world and man in the several beliefs of the Hindoos, Chululahs, and negroes, races so widely different and separated from one another, is a coincidence most remarkable.

A large and hideous species of Spider, said to be only found in the palace of Hampton Court, England, is known by the name of the "Cardinals." This name has been given them from a superst.i.tious belief that the spirits of Cardinal Wolsey and his retinue still haunt the palace in their shape.[1163]

In running across the carpet in an evening, with the shade cast from their large bodies by the light of the lamp or candle, these "Cardinals"

have been mistaken for mice, and have occasioned no little alarm to some of the more nervous inhabitants of the palace.[1164]

The story of the gigantic Spider found in the Church of St. Eustace, at Paris, in Chambers' Miscellany, is related as follows: It is told that the s.e.xton of this church was surprised at very often discovering a certain lamp extinguished in the morning, notwithstanding it had been duly replenished with oil the preceding evening. Curious to learn the cause of this mysterious circ.u.mstance, he kept watch several evenings, and was at last gratified by the discovery. During the night he observed a Spider, of enormous dimensions, come down the chain by which the lamp was suspended, drink up the oil, and, when gorged to satiety, slowly retrace its steps to a recess in the fretwork above. A similar Spider is said to have been found, in 1751, in the cathedral church of Milan. It was observed to feed also on oil. When killed, it weighed four pounds!

and was afterward sent to the imperial museum at Vienna.[1165]

The following remarkable anecdote is translated from the French: "M.

F---- de Saint Omer laid on the chimney-piece of his chamber, one evening on going to bed, a small shirt-pin of gold, the head of which represented a fly. Next day, M. F---- would have taken his pin from the place where he had put it, but the trinket had disappeared. A servant-maid, who had only been in M. F----'s service a few days, was solely suspected of having carried off the pin, and sent away. But, at length, M. F----'s sister, putting up some curtains, was very much surprised to find the lost pin suspended from the ceiling in a Spider's web! And thus was the disappearance of the _bijou_ explained: A Spider, deceived by the figure of the fly which the pin presented, had drawn it into his web."[1166]

In the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times, it is stated that "Spiders do shun all such wals as run to ruine, or are like to be ouerthrowne."[1167]

A Spider hanging from a tree is said to have made both Turenne and Gustavus Adolphus shudder![1168]

M. Zimmerman relates the following instance of antipathy to Spiders: "Being one day in an English company," says he, "consisting of persons of distinction, the conversation happened to fall on antipathies. The greater part of the company denied the reality of them, and treated them as old women's tales; but I told them that antipathy was a real disease.

Mr. William Matthew, son of the Governor of Barbados, was of my opinion, and, as he added that he himself had an extreme antipathy to Spiders, he was laughed at by the whole company. I showed them, however, that this was a real impression of his mind, resulting from a mechanical effect.

Mr. John Murray, afterward Duke of Athol, took it into his head to make, in Mr. Matthew's presence, a Spider of black wax, to try whether this antipathy would appear merely on the sight of the insect. He went out of the room, therefore, and returned with a bit of black wax in his hand, which he kept shut. Mr. Matthew, who in other respects was a sedate and amiable man, imagining that his friend really held a Spider, immediately drew his sword in a great fury, retired with precipitation to the wall, leaned against it, as if to run him through, and sent forth horrible cries. All the muscles of his face were swelled, his eye-b.a.l.l.s rolled in their sockets, and his whole body was as stiff as a post. We immediately ran to him in great alarm, and took his sword from him, a.s.suring him at the same time that Mr. Murray had nothing in his hand but a bit of wax, and that he himself might see it on the table where it was placed. He remained some time in this spasmodic state, and I was really afraid of the consequences. He, however, gradually recovered, and deplored the dreadful pa.s.sion into which he had been thrown, and from which he still suffered. His pulse was exceedingly quick and full, and his whole body was covered with a cold sweat. After taking a sedative, he was restored to his former tranquillity, and his agitation was attended with no other bad consequences."[1169]

In Batavia, New York, on the evening of the 13th of September, 1834, Hon. David E. Evans, agent of the Holland Land Company, discovered in his wine-cellar a live striped snake, about nine inches in length, suspended between two shelves, by the tail, by Spiders' web. From the shelves being two feet apart, and the position of the web, the witnesses were of opinion the snake could not have fallen by accident into it, and thus have become inextricably entangled, but that it had been actually captured, and drawn up so that its head could not reach the shelf below by about an inch, by Spiders, and of a species much smaller than the common fly, three of which at night were seen feeding upon it, while it was yet alive.

Hon. S. c.u.mmings, first Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in his county, and also Postmaster of Batavia, and Mr. D. Lyman Beecher have described this phenomenon, and given the names of quite a number of gentlemen who witnessed it, and will testify to the accuracy of their accounts. Says Mr. c.u.mmings: "Upon a critical examination through a magnifying gla.s.s, the following curious facts appeared. The mouth of the snake was fast tied up, by a great number of threads, wound around it so tight that he could not run out his tongue. His tail was tied in a knot, so as to leave a small loop, or ring, through which the cord was fastened; and the end of the tail, above this loop, to the length of something over half an inch, was lashed fast to the cord, to keep it from slipping. As the snake hung, the length of the cord, from his tail to the focus to which it was fastened, was about six inches; and a little above the tail, there was observed a round ball, about the size of a pea. Upon inspection, this appeared to be a green fly, around which the cord had been wound as a windla.s.s, with which the snake had been hauled up; and a great number of threads were fastened to the cord above, and to the rolling side of this ball to keep it from unwinding, and letting the snake down. The cord, therefore, must have been extended from the focus of this web to the shelf below where the snake was lying when first captured; and being made fast to the loop in his tail, the fly was carried and fastened about midway to the side of the cord. And then by rolling this fly over and over, it wound the cord around it, both from above and below, until the snake was raised to the proper height, and then was fastened, as before mentioned.

"In this situation the suffering snake hung, alive, and furnished a continued feast for several large Spiders, until Sat.u.r.day forenoon, the 16th, when some persons, by playing with him, broke the web above the focus, so as to let part of his body rest upon the shelf below. In this situation he lingered, the Spiders taking no notice of him, until Thursday, eight days after he was discovered, when some large ants were found devouring his body."[1170]

At a recent meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, Mr. Lesley read the following extract from a letter written by Mr. E. A.

Spring, of Eagleswood, N. J.:

"I was over on the South Amboy sh.o.r.e with a friend, walking in a swampy wood, where a d.y.k.e was made, some three feet wide, when we discovered in the middle of this ditch a large black Spider making very queer motions for a Spider, and, on examination, it proved that he had _caught a fish_.

"He was biting the fish, just on the forward side of the dorsal fin, with a deadly gripe, and the poor fish was swimming round and round slowly, or twisting its body as if in pain. The head of its black enemy was sometimes almost pulled under water, but never entirely, for the fish did not seem to have had enough strength, but moved its fins as if exhausted, and often rested. At last it swam under a floating leaf at the sh.o.r.e, and appeared to be trying, by going under that, to sc.r.a.pe off the Spider, but without effect. They then got close to the bank, when suddenly the long black legs of the Spider came up out of the water, where they had possibly been embracing a fish (I have seen Spiders seize flies with all their legs at once), reached out behind, and fastened upon the irregularities of the side of the ditch. The Spider then commenced tugging to get his prize up the bank. My friend stayed to watch them, while I went to the nearest house for a wide-mouthed bottle.

During the six or eight minutes that I was away, the Spider had drawn the fish entirely out of the water, when they had both fallen in again, the bank being nearly perpendicular. There had been a great struggle; and now, on my return, the fish was already hoisted head first more than half his length out on the land. The fish was very much exhausted, hardly making any movement, and the Spider had evidently gained the victory, and was slowly and steadily tugging him up. He had not once quitted his hold during the quarter to half an hour that we had watched them. He held, with his head toward the fish's tail, and pulled him up at an angle of forty-five degrees by stepping backward.... The Spider was three-fourths of an inch long, and weighed fourteen grains; the fish was three and one-fourth inches long, and weighed sixty-six grains."[1171]

The following interesting account of the rarely-witnessed phenomenon of a shower of webs of the Gossamer-spider, _Aranea obtextrix_, is given us by Mr. White: "On the 21st of September, 1741, being intent on field diversions, I rose," says this gentleman, "before daybreak; when I came into the enclosures, I found the stubbles and clover grounds matted all over with a thick coat of cobweb, in the meshes of which a copious and heavy dew hung so plentifully, that the whole face of the country seemed, as it were, covered with two or three setting-nets, drawn one over another. When the dogs attempted to hunt, their eyes were so blinded and hood-winked that they could not proceed, but were obliged to lie down and sc.r.a.pe the inc.u.mbrances from their faces with their fore-feet.... As the morning advanced, the sun became bright and warm, and the day turned out one of the most lovely ones which no season but the autumn produces; cloudless, calm, serene, and worthy of the south of France itself.

"About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our attention, a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, and continuing, without any interruption, till the close of the day. These webs were not single filmy threads, floating in the air in all directions, but perfect flakes of rags; some near an inch broad, and five or six long. On every side, as the observer turned his eyes, might he behold a continual succession of fresh flakes falling into his sight, and twinkling like stars."[1172]

The Times of October 9th, 1826, records another shower of gossamer as follows: "On Sunday, Oct. 1st, 1826, a phenomenon of rare occurrence in the neighborhood of Liverpool was observed in that vicinage, and for many miles distant, especially at Wigan. The fields and roads were covered with a light filmy substance, which, by many persons, was mistaken for cotton; although they might have been convinced of their error, as staple cotton does not exceed a few inches in length, while the filaments seen in such incredible quant.i.ties extended as many yards.

In walking in the fields the shoes were completely covered with it, and its floating fibres came in contact with the face in all directions.

Every tree, lamp-post, or other projecting body had arrested a portion of it. It profusely descended at Wigan like a sleet, and in such quant.i.ties as to affect the appearance of the atmosphere. On examination it was found to contain small flies, some of which were so diminutive as to require a magnifying gla.s.s to render them perceptible. The substance so abundant in quant.i.ty, was the gossamer of the garden, or field Spider, often met with in fine weather in the country, and of which, according to Buffon, it would take 663,552 Spiders to produce a single pound."[1173]

"In the yeare that L. Paulus and C. Marcellus were Consuls," says Pliny, "it rained wool about the castle Carissa, neare to which a yeare after, T. Annius Milo was slaine."[1174] This rain of wool was doubtless a shower of gossamer.

It was an old and strange notion that the gossamer webs were composed of dew burned by the sun. Says Spenser:

More subtle web Arachne cannot spin; Nor _the fine nets_, which oft we woven see, Of _scorched dew_, do not in th' ayre more lightly flee.[1175]

Thomson also:

How still the breeze! save what _the filmy threads_ Of _dew evaporate_ brushes from the plain.[1176]

And Quarles:

And now _autumnal dews_ were seen To _cobweb_ every green.[1177]

Likewise Blackmore:

How part is spun in _silken threads_, and clings, Entangled in the gra.s.s, in _gluey strings_.[1178]

Henry More also mentions this old belief; but suspected, however, the true origin and use of the filmy threads:

As light and thin as _cobwebs_ that do fly In the blue air caused by th' _autumnal sun_, That _boils the dew_, that on the earth doth lie; May seem this whitish rag then is the sc.u.m; Unless that wiser men mak't the _field-spider's loom_.[1179]