Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions Part 9

The English name _Cricket_, the French _Cri-cri_, the Dutch _Krekel_, and the Welsh _Cricell_ and _Cricella_, are evidently derived from the _creak_-ing sounds of these insects.

Gryllidae--Gra.s.shoppers.

Mr. Hughes, after describing an ash-colored Gra.s.shopper (which may be his ash-colored cricket before mentioned),[302] remarks that the superst.i.tious of the inhabitants of Barbados are very apprehensive of some approaching illness to the family, whenever this insect flies into their houses in the evening or in the night.[303]

Athenaeus tells us the ancient Greeks used to eat the common Gra.s.shopper and the Monkey-gra.s.shopper as provocatives of the appet.i.te. Aristophanes says:

How can you, in G.o.d's name, like Gra.s.shoppers, Catching them with a reed, and Cercopes?[304]

Turpin tells us there is a kind of brown Gra.s.shopper in Siam, which the natives consider a delicate food.[305]

"Fernandus Oniedus declareth furthermore," says Peter Martyr in his History of the West Indies, "that in a certain region called Zenu, lying fourescore and tenne miles from Darrina Eastwarde, they exercise a strange kinde of marchaundize: For in the houses of the inhabitantes they found great chests and baskets, made of twigges and leaves of certaine trees apt for that purpose, being all ful of Gra.s.shoppers, Grilles, Crabbes, Crefishes, Snails also, and Locustes, which destroie the fields of corne, all well dried and salted. Being demanded why they reserved such a mult.i.tude of these beastes: they answered, that they kept them to be sowlde (sold) to the borderors, which dwell further within the lande, and that for the exchange of these pretious birdes, and salted fishes, they received of them certayne straunge thinges, wherein partly they take pleasure, and partly use them for the necessarie affaires."[306]

In the account of the voyages of J. Huighen Linschoten, it is stated that the inhabitants of c.u.mana eat "horse-leeches, bats, Gra.s.shoppers, spiders, bees, and raw, sodden, and roasted lice. They spare no living creature whatsoever, but they eat it."[307]

"Among the choice delicacies with which the California Digger Indians regale themselves during the summer season," says the Empire County Argus, "is the Gra.s.shopper roast. Having been an eye-witness to the preparation and discussion of one of their feasts of Gra.s.shoppers, we can describe it truthfully. There are districts in California, as well as portions of the plains between Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, that literally swarm with Gra.s.shoppers, and in such astonishing numbers that a man cannot put his foot to the ground, while walking there, without crushing great numbers. To the Indian they are a delicacy, and are caught and cooked in the following manner: A piece of ground is sought where they most abound, in the center of which an excavation is made, large and deep enough to prevent the insect from hopping out when once in. The entire party of Diggers, old and young, male and female, then surround as much of the adjoining grounds as they can, and each with a green bough in hand, whipping and thrashing on every side, gradually approach the center, driving the insects before them in countless mult.i.tudes, till at last all, or nearly all, are secured in the pit. In the mean time smaller excavations are made, answering the purpose of ovens, in which fires are kindled and kept up till the surrounding earth, for a short distance, becomes sufficiently heated, together with a flat stone, large enough to cover the oven. The Gra.s.shoppers are now taken in coa.r.s.e bags, and, after being thoroughly soaked in salt water for a few moments, are emptied into the oven and closed in. Ten or fifteen minutes suffice to roast them, when they are taken out and eaten without further preparation, and with much apparent relish, or, as is sometimes the case, reduced to powder and made into soup. And having from curiosity tasted, not of the soup, but of the roast, really, if one could divest himself of the idea of eating an insect as we do an oyster or shrimp, without other preparation than simple roasting, they would not be considered very bad eating, even by more refined epicures than the Digger Indians."[308]

An item dated Tuesday, Aug. 21st, 1742, in the Gentleman's Magazine, states: "Great damage has been done to the pastures in the country, particularly about Bristol, by swarms of Gra.s.shoppers; the like has happened in Pennsylvania to a surprising degree."[309]

A common species in Sweden, the _Decticus verrucivorus_, is employed by the native peasants to bite the warts on their hands; the black fluid which it emits from its mouth being supposed to possess the power of making these excrescences vanish.[310] This black fluid, from whatever Gra.s.shoppers it may be emitted, is called by our boys "tobacco spit,"

which it much resembles; and they attribute to it also a wart-curing quality. When they catch one, they hold it between the thumb and fore-finger, and cry out,--

Spit, spit tobacco spit, And then I'll let you go.

The exuviae of a Gra.s.shopper called _Semmi_ or _Sebi_, Kempfer tells us, are preserved for medicinal uses, and sold publicly in shops both in j.a.pan and China.[311]

Dr. James, quoting Dioscorides, says: "Gra.s.shoppers (_Locusta Anglica minor, vulgatissima_, Raii _Ins._ 60.) in a suffumigation relieve under a dysury, especially such as is incident to the female s.e.x. The Locusta Africa.n.u.s is a very good antidote against the poison of the Scorpion."[312]

After describing the Gra.s.shopper of Italy, Brookes says: "It is often an amus.e.m.e.nt among the children of that country to catch this animal; and, by tickling the belly with their finger, it will whistle as long as they chuse to make it."[313]

In France, Gra.s.shoppers are called _Sauterelles_, Hoppers; and in Germany, _Heupferde_, Hay-horses, because they generally feed on gra.s.ses, and their head has something of the form of a horse's head.

If Gra.s.shoppers appear early in the summer in great numbers, they foretell famine and drouth,--a superst.i.tion obtaining in Maryland.

Locustidae--Locusts.

Moufet says: "That Locusts should be generated of the carka.s.se of a mule or a.s.se (as Plutarch reports in the life of Cleonides) by putrefaction, I cannot with philosophers determine; first, because it was permitted to the Jewes to feed on them; secondly, because no man ever yet was an eye-witness of such a putrid and ign.o.ble generation of Locusts."[314]

The first record of the ravages of the Locusts, which we find in history, is the account in the Book of Exodus of the visitation to the land of Egypt. "And the Locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt--very grievous were they.... For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left; and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt."[315]

It is to the Bible, too, we go to find the best account, for correctness and sublimity, of the appearance and ravages of these terrific insects.

It is thus given by the prophet Joel: "A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth; the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. Like the noise of chariots[316] on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their faces the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war, and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks; neither shall one thrust another, they shall walk every one in his path; and when they fall upon the sword they shall not be wounded. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall quake before them, the heavens shall tremble; the sun[317]

and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining."

The usual way in which they are destroyed is also noticed by the prophet. "I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face towards the east sea, and his hinder part towards the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, because he hath done great things."[318]

Paulus Orosius tells us that in the year of the world 3800, during the consulship of M. Plautius Hypsaeus, and M. Fulvius Flaccus, such infinite myriads of Locusts were blown from the coast of Africa into the sea and drowned, that being cast upon the sh.o.r.e in immense heaps they emitted a stench greater than could have been produced by the carca.s.ses of one hundred thousand men. A general pestilence of all living creatures followed. And so great was this plague in Numidia, where Micipsa was king, that eighty thousand persons died; and on the sea-coast, near Carthage and Utica, about two hundred thousand were reported to have perished. Thirty thousand soldiers, appointed as the garrison of Africa, and stationed in Utica, were among the number. So violent was the destruction that the bodies of more than fifteen hundred of these soldiers, from one gate of the city, were carried and buried in the same day.[319]

St. Augustine also mentions a plague to have arisen in Africa from the same cause, which destroyed no less than eight hundred thousand persons (_octigenta hominum millia_) in the kingdom of Masanissa alone, and many more in the territories bordering upon the sea.[320]

Blown from that quarter of the globe, Locusts have occasionally visited both Italy and Spain. The former country was severely ravaged by myriads of these desolating intruders, in the year 591. These were of a larger size than common, as we are informed by Mouffet, who quotes an ancient historian; and from their stench, when cast into the sea, arose a pestilence which carried off near a million of men and cattle.[321]

In A.D. 677, Syria and Mesopotamia were overrun by Locusts.[322]

"About the year of our Lord 872," we read in Wanley's Wonders, "came into France such an innumerable company of Locusts, that the number of them darkened the very light of the sun; they were of extraordinary bigness, had a sixfold order of wings, six feet, and two teeth, the hardness whereof surpa.s.sed that of stone. These eat up every green thing in all the fields of France. At last, by the force of the winds, they were carried into the sea (the Baltic) and there drowned; after which, by the agitation of the waves, the dead bodies of them were cast upon the sh.o.r.es, and from the stench of them (together with the famine they had made with their former devouring) there arose so great a plague, that it is verily thought every third person in France died of it."[323]

These Locusts devoured in France, on an average every day, one hundred and forty acres; and their daily marches, or distances of flight, were computed at twenty miles.[324]

In 1271, all the cornfields of Milan were destroyed; and in the year 1339, all those of Lombardy.[325] We read in Bateman's Doome, that in 1476, "gra.s.shoppers and the great rising of the river Isula did spoyle al Poland." A famine took place in the Venetian territory in 1478, occasioned by these terrific scourges, in which thirty thousand persons are reported to have perished. Mouffet mentions many other instances of their devastations in Europe,--in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany.[326]

A pa.s.sage of Locusts in France, in 1613, entirely cut up, even to the very roots, more than fifteen thousand acres of corn in the neighborhood of Arles, and had even penetrated into the barns and granaries, when, as it were by Providence, many hundreds of birds, especially starlings, came to diminish their numbers. Notwithstanding this, nothing could be more astonishing than their multiplication, for the fecundity of the Locust is very remarkable. Upon an order issued by government, for the collection of their eggs, more than three thousand measures were collected, from each of which, it was calculated, would have issued nearly two millions of young ones.[327] In 1650, they entered Russia, in immense divisions, in three different places; thence pa.s.sed over into Poland and Lithuania, where the air was darkened by their numbers. In many parts they lay dead to the depth of four feet. Sometimes they covered the surface of the earth like a dark cloud, loaded the trees, and the destruction which they produced exceeded all calculation.[328]

In 1645, immense swarms visited the islands of Formosa and Tayowan, and caused such a famine that eight thousand persons died of hunger.[329]

"In 1649," says Sir Hans Sloane, "the Locusts destroyed all the products of the island of Teneriffe. They came from the coast of Barbary, the wind being a Levant thence. They flew as far as they could, then one alighted in the sea, and another on it, so that one after another they made a heap as big as the greatest ship above water, and were esteemed almost as many under. Those above water, next day, after the sun's refreshing them, took flight again, and came in clouds to the island, whence the inhabitants had perceived them in the air, and had gathered all the soldiers of the island and of Laguna together, being 7 or 8000 men, who laying aside their arms, some took bags, some spades, and having notice by their scouts from the hills when they alighted, they went straight thither, made trenches, and brought their bags full, and covered them with mould.... After two months fruitless management of them in this manner, the ecclesiastics took them in hand by penances, etc. But all would not do: the Locusts staid their four months; cattle eat them and died, and so did several men, and others stuck out in botches. The other Canary islands were so troubled, also, that they were forced to bury their provisions. They were troubled forty years before with the like calamity."[330]

Barbot, after mentioning a famine that happened in North Guinea in 1681, which destroyed many thousands of the inhabitants of the Continent, and forced many to sell themselves for slaves, to only get sustenance, says these fearful famines are also some years occasioned by the dreadful swarms of Locusts, which come from the eastward and spread over the whole country in such prodigious mult.i.tudes, that they darken the very air, pa.s.sing over head like mighty clouds. They leave nothing that is green wheresoever they come, either on the ground or trees, and fly so swiftly from place to place, that whole provinces are devastated in a very short time. Barbot adds, terrific storms of hail, wind, and such like judgments from Heaven, are nothing to compare to this, which when it happens, there is no question to be made but that mult.i.tudes of the natives must starve, having no neighboring countries to supply them with corn, because those round about them are no better husbands than themselves, and are no less liable to the same calamities.[331]

Of a swarm, which in the year 1693 covered four square miles of ground, a German author has made the following estimate. Observing that, when he trod on the ground, at least three were crushed, and that in a square German measure, less than an English foot, ten were destroyed; and after determining the number of these square measures in the four miles, he concluded that ninety-two billions, one hundred and sixty millions of Locusts were congregated on the surface. This is altogether a very moderate calculation, for not only is their number more compact in breadth, but they are often piled knee-high on the earth.[332]

In 1724, Dr. Shaw was a witness of the devastations of these insects in Barbary. He has given us a description of their habits.[333] For four successive years, from 1744 to 1747, Locusts ravaged the southern provinces of Spain and Portugal.[334] In a letter from Transylvania, dated August 22d, 1747, a graphic description is given of two vast columns that overswept that country. "They form," says the writer, "a close compact column about fifteen yards deep, in breadth about four musket-shot, and in length about four leagues; they move with such force, or rather precipitation, that the air trembles to such a degree as to shake the leaves upon the trees, and they darkened the sky in such a manner, that when they pa.s.sed over us I could not see my people at twenty feet distance."[335] This flight was four hours in pa.s.sing over the Red Tower. The guards here attempted to stop them, by firing cannon at them; and where, indeed, the b.a.l.l.s and shot swept through the swarm, they gave way and divided; but, having filled up their ranks in a moment, they proceeded on their journey.[336] In an item dated Hermanstadt, July 24, 1748, it is stated that on the day before, a hussar, coming from the plague committee, saw such a host of these insects near Szanda, that they covered the country for a mile round, and were so thick, that he was obliged to dismount from his horse, and halt for three hours, until the inhabitants of the district, coming with all sorts of instruments, beat about and forced with loud cries these pests to quit the spot.[337] In another item, dated Warsaw, August 15, 1748, it is stated that a certain prince sent out soldiers against the Locusts, who fired upon them not only with small arms, but with cannons.

They succeeded in dividing the Locusts, but unluckily with the noise frightened away the storks and cranes which daily consume many of these insects.[338] Some stragglers from these swarms which so desolated Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, Hungary, and Poland, in the years 1747 and '48, made their way into England, where they caused some alarm.[339] During this grand invasion of Europe, they even crossed the Baltic, and visited Sweden in 1749. Charles the Twelfth, in Bessarabia, imagined himself, it is said, a.s.sailed by a hurricane, mingled with tremendous hail, when a cloud of these insects suddenly falling, and covering both men and horses, arrested his entire army in its march.[340]

During the devastations committed by the Locusts in Spain in 1754, '55, '56, and '57, a body of them entered the church of Almaden, and devoured the silk garments that adorned the images of the saints, not sparing even the varnish on the altars.[341]

In 1750 and '53 Poland was again devastated by Locusts.[342] In June, 1772, there were several swarms of "large black flies of the Locust kind," that did incredible damage to the fruits of the earth, seen in England. Salt water, it is said, was found effectual in destroying them.[343]

From 1778 to 1780 the empire of Morocco was terribly devastated by Locusts: every green thing was eaten up, not even the bitter bark of the orange and pomegranate escaping--a most dreadful famine ensued. The poor wandered over the country, in search of a wretched subsistence from the roots of plants. They picked, from the dung of camels, the undigested grains of barley, and devoured them with eagerness. Vast numbers perished, and the streets and roads were strewed with the unburied carca.s.ses. On this sad occasion, fathers sold their children, and husbands their wives. When they visit a country, says Mr. Jackson, from whom we have gathered the above facts, speaking of the same empire, it behooves every one to lay in provision for a famine, for they stay from three to seven years. When they have devoured all other vegetables, they attack the trees, consuming first the leaves and then the bark.[344]

To prevent the fatal consequences which would have resulted from a pa.s.sage of Locusts in 1780 near Bontzhida, in Transylvania, fifteen hundred persons were ordered each to gather a sack full of the insects, part of which were crushed, part burned, and part interred.

Notwithstanding this, very little diminution was remarked in their numbers, so astonishing was their multiplication, until very cold and sharp weather had come on. In the following spring there were millions of eggs disinterred and destroyed by the people, who were levied "en ma.s.se" for the operation; but notwithstanding all this, many places of tolerable extent were still to be found, in which the soil was covered with young Locusts, so that not a single spot was left naked. These were finally, however, swept into ditches, the opposite sides of which were provided with cloths tightly stretched, and crushed.[345]

When the provincial governors of Spain are informed in the spring that Locusts have been seen, they collect the soldiers and peasants, divide them into companies and surround the district. Every man is furnished with a long broom, with which he strikes the ground, and thus drives the young Locusts toward a common center, where a vast excavation, with a quant.i.ty of brushwood, is prepared for their reception, and where the flame destroys them. Three thousand men were thus employed, in 1780, for three weeks, at Zamora; and it was reckoned that the quant.i.ty collected exceeded 10,000 bushels.[346] In 1783, 400 bushels more were collected and destroyed in the same way.[347]

Mr. Barrow informs us that in South Africa, in 1784 and 1797, two thousand square miles were literally covered by Locusts, which, being carried into the sea by a northwest wind, formed, for fifty miles along sh.o.r.e, a bank three or four feet high; and when the wind was in the opposite point, the horrible odor which they exhaled was perceptible a hundred and fifty miles off.[348]

The immense column of Locusts which ravaged all the Mahratta territory, and was thought to have come from Arabia, extended, Mr. Kirby's friend told him, five hundred miles, and was so dense as thoroughly to hide the sun, and prevent any object from casting a shadow. This horde was not composed of the migratory Locust, but of a red species, which imparted a sanguine color to the trees on which they settled.[349]

Mr. Forbes describes a flight of Locusts which he saw soon after his arrival at Baroche in 1779. It was more than a mile in length, and half as much in breadth, and appeared, as the sun was in the meridian, like a black cloud at a distance. As it approached, its density obscured the solar rays, causing a gloom like that of an eclipse, over the gardens, and causing a noise like the rushing of a torrent. They were almost an hour in pa.s.sing a given point.[350]

In another place, this traveler states that, in one considerable tract near the confines of the Brodera district, he witnessed a mournful scene, occasioned by a scourge of Locusts. They had, some time before he came, alighted in that part of the country, and left behind them, he says, "an awful contrast to the general beauty of that earthly paradise." The sad description of Hosea, he adds, was literally realized: "That which the palmer-worm hath left, hath the caterpillar eaten. They have laid waste the vine, and barked the fig-tree; they have made it clean bare, and the branches thereof are made white: the pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field are withered. Howl, O ye husbandmen! for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished. How do the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate!"[351]

On the 16th of May, 1800, Buchanan met with in Mysore a flight of Locusts which extended in length about three miles. He compares the noise they made to the sound of a cataract.[352] This swarm was very destructive to the young crops of jola.[353]

In 1811, at Smyrna, at right angles to a flight of Locusts, a man rode forty miles before he got rid of the moving column. This immense flight continued for three days and nights, apparently without intermission. It was computed that the lowest number of Locusts in this swarm must have exceeded 168,608,563,200,200! Captain Beaufort determined that the Locusts of this flight, which he himself saw, if framed into a heap, would have exceeded in magnitude more than a thousand and thirty times the largest pyramid of Egypt; or if put on the ground close together, in a band of a mile and an eighth in width, would have encircled the globe!

This immense swarm caused such a famine in the district of Marwar, that the natives fled for subsistence in a living torrent into Guzerat and Bombay; and out of every hundred of these Marwarees, Captain Carnac estimates, ninety-nine died that year! Near the town of Baroda, these poor people perished at the rate of five hundred a day; and at Ahmedabad, a large city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, one hundred thousand died from this awful visitation![354]

In 1816, Captain Riley met with a flight of Locusts in the north of Africa, which extended in length about eight miles, and in breadth three. He tells us, also, he was informed that several years before he came to Mogadore, nearly all the Locusts in the empire, which at that time were very numerous, and had laid waste the country, were carried off in one night, and drowned in the Atlantic Ocean: that their dead carca.s.ses a few days afterward were driven by winds and currents on sh.o.r.e, all along the western coast, extending from near Cape Spartel to beyond Mogadore, forming in many places immense piles on the beach: that the stench arising from their remains was intolerable, and was supposed to have produced the plague which broke out about that time in various parts of the Moorish dominions.[355] Before this plague in 1799, Mr.

Jackson tells us, from Mogadore to Tangier the face of the earth was covered by them, and relates the following singular incident which occurred at El Araiche: The whole region from the confines of the Sahara was ravaged by the Locusts; but on the other side of the river El Kos not one of them was to be seen, though there was nothing to prevent their flying over it. Till then they had proceeded northward; but upon arriving at its banks they turned to the east, so that all the country north of El Araiche was full of pulse, fruits and grain, exhibiting a most striking contrast to the desolation of the adjoining district. At length they were all carried by a violent hurricane into the Western Ocean; the sh.o.r.e, as in former instances, was covered by their carca.s.ses, and a pestilence (confirming the statement, and verifying the supposition of Captain Riley) was caused by the horrid stench which they emitted: but when this evil ceased, their devastations were followed by a most abundant crop.[356]