Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions Part 35

"The country people have a tradition, that a small quant.i.ty of Spiders'

web, given about an hour before the fit of an ague, and repeated immediately before it, is effectual in curing that troublesome, and sometimes obstinate distemper.... The Indians about North Carolina have great dependence on this remedy for ague, to which they are much subject."[1227]

"Of the cod or bags of Spiders, M. Bon caused a sort of drops to be made, in imitation of those of G.o.ddard, because they contain a great quant.i.ty of volatile salt."[1228]

Moufet, in Theatrum Insectorum, has the following: "Also that knotty whip of G.o.d, and mock of all physicians, the Gowt, which learned men say can be cured by no remedy, findes help and cure by a Spider layed on, if it be taken at that time when neither sun nor moon shine, and the hinder legs pulled off, and put into a deer's skin and bound to the pained foot, and be left on it for some time. Also for the most part we finde those people to be free from the gowt of hands or feet (which few medicaments can doe), in whose houses the Spiders breed much, and doth beautifie them with her tapestry and hangings.... Our chirurgeons cure warts thus: They wrap a Spider's ordinary web into the fashion of a ball, and laying it on the wart, they set it on fire, and so let it burn to ashes; by this means the wart is rooted out by the roots, and will never grow again.... I cannot but repeat a history that I formerly heard from our dear friend worthy to be believed, Bruerus. A l.u.s.tfull nephew of his, having spent his estate in rioting and brothel-houses, being ready to undertake anything for money, to the hazzard of his life; when he heard of a rich matron of London, that was troubled with a timpany, and was forsaken of all physicians as past cure, he counterfeited himself to be a physician in practice, giving forth that he would cure her and all diseases. But as the custom is, he must have half in hand, and the other half under her hand, to be payed when she was cured. Then he gave her a Spider to drink, as supposing her past cure, promising to make her well in three dayes, and so in a coach with four horses he presently hastes out of town, lest there being a rumor of the death of her (which he supposed to be very neer) he should be apprehended for killing her. But the woman shortly after by the force of the venome was cured, and the ignorant physician, who was the author of so great a work, was not known. After some moneths this good man returns, not knowing what had happened, and secretly enquiring concerning the state of that woman, he heard she was recovered. Then he began to boast openly, and to ask her how she had observed her diet, and he excused his long absence, by reason of the sickenesse of a princ.i.p.al friend, and that he was certain that no harm could proceed from so healthful physick; also he asked confidently for the rest of his reward, and to be given him freely."[1229]

"A third kind of Spiders," says Pliny, "also known as the 'phalangium,'

is a Spider with a hairy body, and a head of enormous size. When opened, there are found in it two small worms, they say: these, attached in a piece of deer's skin, before sunrise, to a woman's body, will prevent conception, according to what Caecilius, in his Commentaries, says. This property lasts, however, for a year only; and, indeed, it is the only one of all the anti-conceptives that I feel myself at liberty to mention, in favour of some women whose fecundity, quite teeming with children (plena liberis), stands in need of some such respite."[1230]

Mr. John Aubrey, in the chapter of his Miscellanies devoted to Magick, gives the following: "To cure a Beast that is sprung, (that is) poisoned (It mostly lights upon Sheep): Take the little red Spider, called a tentbob (not so big as a great pin's-head), the first you light upon in the spring of the year, and rub it in the palm of your hand all to pieces: and having so done, make water on it, and rub it in, and let it dry; then come to the beast and make water in your hand, and throw it in his mouth. It cures in a matter of an hour's time. This rubbing serves for a whole year, and it is no danger to the hand. The chiefest skill is to know whether the beast be poisoned or no."[1231] Mr. Aubrey had this receipt from Mr. Pacy.

In the year 1709, M. Bon, of Montpellier, communicated to the Royal Academy of that city a discovery which he had made of a new kind of silk, from the very fine threads with which several species of Spiders (probably the _Aranea diadema_ and others closely allied to it) inclose their eggs; which threads were found to be much stronger than those composing the Spider's web. They were easily separated, carded, and spun, and then afforded a much finer thread than that of the silk-worm, but, according to Reaumur, inferior to this both in l.u.s.ter and strength.

They were also found capable of receiving all the different dyes with equal facility. M. Bon carried his experiments so far as to obtain two or three pairs of stockings and gloves of this silk, which were of an elegant gray color, and were presented, as samples, to the Academy. As the Spiders also were much more prolific, and much more hardy than silk-worms, great expectations were formed of benefit of the discovery.

Reaumur accordingly took up and prosecuted the inquiry with zeal. He computed that 663,522 Spiders would scarcely furnish a single pound of silk; and conceived that it would be impossible to provide the necessarily immense numbers with flies, their natural food. This obstacle, however, was soon removed, by his finding that they would subsist very well upon earth-worms chopped, and upon the soft ends or roots of feathers. But a new obstacle arose from their unsocial propensities, which proved insurmountable; for though at first they seemed to feed quietly, and even work together, several of them at the same web, yet they soon began to quarrel, and the strongest devoured the weakest, so that of several hundred, placed together in a box, but three or four remained alive after a few days; and n.o.body could propose to keep and feed each separately. The silk was found to be naturally of different colors; particularly white, yellow, gray, sky-blue, and coffee-colored brown.[1232]

A Spider raiser in France, more recently, is said to have tamed eight hundred Spiders, which he kept in a single apartment for their silk.[1233]

De Azara states that in Paraguay a Spider forms a spherical coc.o.o.n for its eggs, an inch in diameter, of a yellow silk, which the inhabitants spin on account of the permanency of the color.[1234]

The ladies of Bermuda make use of the silk of the Silk-Spider, _Epeira clavipes_, for sewing purposes.[1235]

The Spider-web fabric has been carried so nearly to transparency (in Hindostan) that the Emperor Aurengzebe is said to have reproved his daughter for the indelicacy of her costume, while she wore as many as seven thicknesses of it.[1236]

Astronomers employ the strongest thread of Spiders, the one, namely, that supports the web, for the divisions of the micrometer. By its ductility this thread acquires about a fifth of its ordinary length.[1237]

Topsel, in his History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, has the following, which he calls an "old and common verse:

Nos aper auditu praecellit, Aranea tactu, Vultur odoratu, lynx visu, simia gustu.

Which may be Englished thus:

To hear, the boar, to touch, the Spider us excells, The lynx to see, the ape to taste, the vulture for the smells."

[1238]

"It is manifest," says Moufet, "that Spiders are bred of some aereall seeds putrefied, from filth and corruption, because that the newest houses the first day they are whited will have both Spiders and cobwebs in them."[1239] This theory of generation from putrefaction was a favorite one among the ancient writers; see the history of the Scorpion.

MISCELLANEOUS.

It may be new to many of our readers, who are familiar with the Elegy in a Country Church-yard, to be told that its author was at the pains to turn the characteristics of the Linnaean orders of insects into Latin hexameters, the ma.n.u.script of which is still preserved in his interleaved copy of the "Systema Naturae."[1240]

It is related by Boerhaave, in his Life of Swammerdam, that when the Grand Duke of Tuscany was visiting with Mr. Thevenot the curiosities of Holland, in 1668, he found nothing more worthy of his admiration than the great naturalist's account of the structure of caterpillars,--for Swammerdam, by the skillful management of instruments of wonderful delicacy and fineness, showed the duke in what manner the future b.u.t.terfly, with all its parts, lies neatly folded up in the caterpillar, like a rose in the unexpanded bud. He was, indeed, so struck with this and other wonders of the insect world, disclosed to him by the great naturalist, that he made him the offer of twelve thousand florins to induce him to reside at his court; but Swammerdam, from feelings of independence, modestly declined to accept it, preferring to continue his delightful studies at home.[1241]

There is an epitaph in the church of St. Hilary at Poictiers, beginning "Vermibus hic ponor," which the people interpreted to mean that a Saint was buried there who undertook to cure children of the worms. Women, accordingly used to sc.r.a.pe the tomb and administer the powder; but the clergy, to prevent this absurdity (for Luther had arisen), erected a barrier to keep them off. They soon began, however, to carry away for the same purpose pieces of the wooden bars.[1242]

A diseased woman at Patton, drinking of the water in which the bones of St. Milburge were washed, there came from her stomach "a filthie worme, ugly and horrible to behold, having six feete, two hornes on his head, and two on his tayle." Brother Porter, in his Flowers of the Saints, tells this, and adds that the "worme was shutt up in a hollow piece of wood, and reserved afterward in the monasterie as a trophy and monument of S. Milburg, untill, by the lascivious furie of him that destroyed all goodness in England, that with other religious houses and monasteries, went to ruin." Hence the "filthie worme" was lost, and we have nothing now instead but the Reformation.[1243]

Capt. Clarke, in his pa.s.sage from Dublin to Chester, on the 2d of September, 1733, met with a cloud "of flying insects of various sorts,"

which stuck about the rigging of the vessel in a surprising manner.[1244]

De Geer, chamberlain to the King of Sweden, writes (iv. 63) that in January, 1749, at Leufsta, in Sweden, and in three or four neighboring parishes, the snow was covered with living worms and insects of various kinds. The people a.s.sured him they fell with the snow, and he was shown several that had dropped on people's hats. He caused the snow to be removed from places where these worms had been seen, and found several which seemed to be on the surface of the snow which had fallen before, and were covered by the succeeding. It was impossible that they could have come there from under the ground, which was then frozen more than three feet deep, and absolutely impervious to such insects. In 1750, he again discovered vast quant.i.ties of insects on the snow, which covered a large frozen lake some leagues from Stockholm. Preceding and accompanying both these falls of insects were violent storms that had torn up trees by the roots, and carried away to a great distance the surrounding earth, and at the same time the insects which had taken up their winter quarters in it.[1245] These insects were chiefly _Brachyptera_ L., _Aphodii_, Spiders, caterpillars, and particularly the larvae of the _Telephorus fuscus_.[1246] Another shower of insects is recorded to have fallen in Hungary, November 20, 1672;[1247] another, also, in the newspapers of July 2d, 1810, to have fallen in France the January preceding, accompanied by a shower of red snow.[1248]

In the Muses Threnodie, p. 213, we read that "many are the instances, even to this day, of charms practised among the vulgar, especially among the Highlands, attended with forms of prayer. In the Miscellaneous MS., written by Baillie Dundee, among several medicinal receipts I find an exorcism against all kinds of worms in the body, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to be repeated three mornings, as a certain remedy."[1249]

The Guahibo, Humboldt says, that "eats everything that exists above, and everything under ground," eats insects, and particularly scolopendras and worms.[1250] The same traveler also says he has seen the Indian children drag out of the earth centipedes eighteen inches long, and more than half an inch broad, and devour them.[1251]

"The seventeene of March, 1586," says John Stow in his Annales of England, "a strange thing happened, the like whereof before hath not beene heard of in our time. Master Dorington, of Spaldwicke, in the countie of Huntington, esquier, one of his maiesties gentlemen Pensioners, had a horse which died sodainly, and, being ripped to see the cause of his death, there was found in the hole of the hart of the same horse a strange worme, which lay on a round heape in a kall or skin of the likeness of a toade, which, being taken out and spread abroad, was in forme and fashion not easie to be described, the length of which worme divided into many greines to the number of fiftie (spread from the bodie like the branches of a tree), was from the snowte to the ende of the longest greine, seventeene inches, having four issues in the greines, from the which dropped foorth a red water; the body in bignes round about was three inches and a halfe, the colour whereof was very like a makerel. This monstrous worme, found in manner aforesaid, crauling to have got away, was stabbed in with a dagger and died, which, after being dried, was shewed to many honorable persons of the realme."[1252]

Dr. Sparrman, in his journey to Paarl, an inland town at the Cape of Good Hope, having filled his insect-box with fine specimens, was obliged to put a "whole regiment of flies and other insects" round the brim of his hat. Having entered the house of a rich old widow troubled with the gout, for food, he was warned by his servant that if she should happen to see the insects he would certainly be turned out of doors for a conjuror (hexmeester). Accordingly he was very careful to keep his hat always turned away from her, but all would not do--the old lady discovered the "little beasts," and to her greater astonishment that they were run through their bodies with pins. An immediate explanation was demanded; and had the doctor not been just then lamenting with the widow for her deceased husband, and giving dissertations on the dropsy and cough that carried off the poor man, the explanation he gave would hardly have been sufficient to quell the rage of this superst.i.tious boor at the thought of there being a sorcerer in her house.[1253]

In several parts of Europe quite a trade is carried on in the way of buying and selling rare insects, chiefly the rare Alpine b.u.t.terflies and moths. The instant the entomologist steps from his carriage, in the celebrated valley of Chamouni, with net in hand, whence he is known to be a papillionist, he is surrounded by half a dozen Savoyard boys, from the age of fifteen down to eight, each with a large collecting-box full of insects in his hands for sale, and with the scientist bargains for the insects that are found only on the mountains, and which these hardy chaps alone can obtain. There are again insect dealers on a larger scale, who live there, and have many of these boys in their employ; one of which wholesale merchants, Michel Bossonney, at Martigni in the Vallais, in the year 1829, sold 7000 insects, mostly of rare and beautiful species. Another dealer, on a perhaps still larger scale, is M. Provost Duval, of Geneva, a highly respectable entomologist. In 1830, he could supply upwards of 600 species of Lepidoptera, and as many Coleoptera, of the Swiss Alps, the south of France, and Germany, at prices varying from one to fifteen francs each, according to their rarity.

The advantage of this new traffic, both to the individuals engaged in it and to science, is great. Now the _Sphinx (Deilephila) hippophaes_, formerly sold at sixty francs each, and of which one of the first discovered specimens was sold for two hundred francs, is so plentiful, in consequence of the numbers collected and reared through their several stages, by the peasants all along the course of the Arve, where the plant, _Hippophae rhamoides_, on which the larvae feed, and the imago takes its specific name, grows in profusion, that a specimen costs but three francs. A general taste also for the science, and an appreciation for beauty, is spread by the more striking Alpine species, such as _Parna.s.sius apollo_ and _Calichroma alpina_, not only among the travelers who buy them for their beauty, who before would hardly deign to look upon an insect, but among the more ignorant Alpine collectors themselves.[1254]

Navarette, under the head of "Insects and Vermin," speaks of an animal which the Chinese call Jen Ting, or Wall-dragon, because it runs up and down walls. It is also, says this traveler, called the Guard of the Palace, and this for the following reason: The emperors were accustomed to make an ointment of this insect, and some other ingredients, with which they anointed their concubines' wrists, as the mark of it continued as long as they had not to do with man; but as soon as they did so, it immediately vanished, by which their honesty or falsehood was discovered. Hence it came that this insect was called the Guard of the Court, or, of the court ladies. Navarette laments that all men have not a knowledge of this wonderful ointment.[1255]

Navarette tells us he once caught (in China?) a small insect that was injurious to poultry--"a very deformed insect, and of a strange shape"--when, as soon as it was known, several women ran to him to beg its _tail_. He gave it to them, and they told him it was of excellent use when dried, and made into powder, "being a prodigious help to women in labor, to forward their delivery, if they drank it in a little wine."[1256]

The Irish have a large beetle of which strange tales are believed; they term it the Coffin-cutter, and deem it in some way connected with the grave and purgatory.[1257]

Turpin, in his History of Siam, says: "There is a very singular animal in Siam ... bred in the dung of elephants. It is entirely black, its wings are strong, and its head extremely curious: it is furnished on the top with several points, in the form of a trunk, and a small horn in the middle: it has four large feet, which raise it more than an inch from the ground: its back seems to be one very hard entire sh.e.l.l. It flies to the very top of the cocoa-trees, of which it eats the heart, and often kills them, if a remedy is not applied. Children play with them, and make them fight."[1258]

General Count Dejeau, Aid-de-camp to Napoleon Bonaparte, was so anxious, says Jaeger, in his Life of North American Insects, to increase the number of specimens in his entomological cabinet, that he even availed himself of his military campaigns for this purpose, and was continually occupied in collecting insects and fastening them with pins on the outside of his hat, which was always covered with them. The Emperor, as well as the whole army, were accustomed to see General Dejeau's head thus singularly ornamented, even when in battle. But the departed spirits of those murdered insects once had their revenge on him; for, in the battle of Wagram, in 1809, and while he was at the side of Napoleon, a shot from the enemy struck Dejeau's head, and precipitated him senseless from his horse. Soon, however, recovering from the shock, and being asked by the Emperor if he was still alive, he answered, "I am not dead; but, alas! my insects are all gone!" for his hat was literally torn to pieces.[1259]

Professor Jaeger tells also the following anecdote of another pa.s.sionate naturalist: The celebrated Prince Paul of Wurtemberg, whom Mr. Jaeger met in 1829 at Port-au-Prince, being one day at the latter's house, shed tears of envy when he showed him the gigantic beetle Actaeon, which, only a short time before, had been presented to him by the Haytien Admiral Banajotti, he having found it at the foot of a cocoa-nut tree on his plantation.[1260]

While traveling in Poland, Professor Jaeger visited the highly accomplished Countess Ragowska, at her country residence, when she exhibited her fine, scientifically-arranged collection of b.u.t.terflies and other insects, and told him that she had personally instructed her children in botany, history, and geography by means of her entomological cabinet--botany, from the plants on which the various larvae feed; history, from the names, as Menelaus, Berenice, etc., given as specific names to the perfect insects; and geography, from the native countries of the several specimens.[1261] From the scientific names of insects, and the technical terms employed in their study, quite a knowledge of Latin and Greek, and philology in general, might also be gained.

In R. Brookes' "Natural History of Insects, with their properties and uses in medicine," we find the following statement: "There have been the solid sh.e.l.ls of a sort of Beetle brought to England, that were found on the eastern coast of Africa, over against part of the Island of Madagascar, which the natives hang to their necks, and make use of them as whistles to call their cattle together."[1262] What this "sort of Beetle" is I have not been able yet to determine.

Mr. Fitch W. Taylor, chaplain to the squadron commanded by Commodore Geo. C. Read, gives a translation of several Siamese books, and among others the Siamese Dream-book. It was translated by Mrs. Davenport, and the subject is thus introduced:

"In former times a great prophet and magician, who had much wisdom and could foretell all future events, gave the following interpretation of signs and dreams. Whosoever sees signs and visions, if he wishes to know whether they forebode good or evil, whether happiness or misery, if he dream of any animals, insects, birds, or fishes, and wishes to know the interpretation, let him examine this book."

Of these signs and dreams I make extract of those which refer to insects, as follows:

"If a person be alone, and an insect or reptile fall before the face, but the individual see it only without touching it, it denotes that some heavenly being will bestow great blessings on him. If it fall to the right side, it denotes that all his friends, wherever scattered abroad, shall again meet him in peace. If it fall behind the person, it denotes that he shall be slandered and maliciously talked of by his friends and acquaintances. If in falling it strike the face, it denotes that the individual will soon be married. If it strike the right arm, it denotes that the individual's wishes, whatever they are, shall be accomplished.

If it strike the left hand, it denotes that the individual will lose his friends by death. If it strike the foot, it denotes that whatever trouble the individual may have had, all shall vanish, and he shall reach the summit of happiness. If, after touching the foot, it should crawl upward toward the head, it denotes that the individual shall be raised to high office by the rulers of his country. If it crawl to the right side, it denotes that the person shall hear bad tidings of some absent friend. If the insect or reptile fall without touching the body, and immediately flee toward the northeast, it denotes deep but not lasting trouble; if toward the northwest, it denotes that the person shall receive numerous and valuable presents; if toward the southeast, it denotes that he shall receive great riches, and afterwards go to a distant land; or that he shall go to a distant land, and there ama.s.s great wealth.

"If an animal, insect, bird, or reptile, cross the path of any one as he walks along, the animal coming from the right, let him not proceed--some calamity will surely happen to him in the way. If the animal come from the left, let him proceed--good fortune shall surely happen to him. If the animal proceed before him in the same road in which he intends to travel, it denotes good fortune....

"I now beg to interpret the signs of the night. If at midnight an individual hears the noises of animals in the house where he resides, I will show him whether they indicate good or evil. If any insect cry 'click, click, click,' he will possess real treasures while he abides there. If it cry 'kek, kek,' it is an evil omen both to that and the neighboring houses. If it cry 'chit, chit,' it denotes that he shall always feed upon the most sumptuous provisions. If it cry 'keat, keat,'

in a loud, shrill voice, it denotes that his residence there shall be attended with evil.

"I now beg to interpret with regard to the Spider. If a Spider on the ceiling utter a low, tremulous moan, it denotes that the individual who hears the noise shall either change his residence or that his goods shall be stolen. If it utter the same voice on the outside of the house, and afterward the Spider crawl to the head of the bed, it denotes troublesome visitors and quarrels to the residents."[1263]