ORDER III.
ORTHOPTERA.
Blattidæ—Cockroaches.
Sloane tells us the Indians of Jamaica drink the ashes of Cockroaches in physic: bruise and mix them with sugar and apply them to ulcers and cancers to suppurate; and are said also to give them to kill worms in children.242 Dr. James, quoting Dioscorides, Lib. II. cap. 38, remarks: “The inside of the Blatta (B. foetida, Monf. 138), which is found in bake-houses, bruised or boiled in oil, and dropped into the ears, eases the pains thereof.”243 It is most probable the insect now called Blatta is not at all meant by either of the above gentlemen. The Blatta of Dioscorides is quite likely the Blatta of Pliny, which has been with good reason conjectured to be the modern Blaps mortisaga—the common Church-yard beetle.
In England, the hedge-hog, Erinaceus Europæus, from its fondness for insects and its nocturnal habits, is often kept domesticated in kitchens to destroy the Cockroaches with which they are infested; and the housekeepers of Jamaica, as we are informed by Sir Hans Sloane, for the same reasons and purpose, keep large spiders in their houses.244 A species of monkey, Simia jacchus, and a species of lemur, L. tardigradus, are also made use of for destroying these insects, especially on board ships.245 Mr. Neill, in the Magazine of Natural History, in his account of the above-mentioned species of monkey, says: “By chance we observed it devouring a large Cockroach, which it had caught running along the deck of the vessel; and, from this time to nearly the end of the voyage, a space of four or five weeks, it fed almost exclusively on these insects, and contributed most effectually to rid the vessel of them. It frequently ate a score of the largest kind, which are from two to two and a half inches long, and a very great number of the smaller ones, three or four times in the course of the day. It was quite amusing to see it at its meal. When he had got hold of one of the largest Cockroaches, he held it in his fore-paws, and then invariably nipped the head off first; he then pulled out the viscera and cast them aside, and devoured the rest of the body, rejecting the dry elytra and wings, and also the legs of the insect, which are covered with short stiff bristles. The small Cockroaches he ate without such fastidious nicety.”246
The common Cockroach, or Black-beetle, as it is sometimes vulgarly called, the Blatta orientalis, is said originally to be a native of India, and introduced here, as well as in every other part of the civilized globe, through the medium of commerce. In England, another species, said to be a native of America, Blatta Americana, larger than the last, is now also becoming very common, especially in seaport towns where merchandise is stored.247
An old Swede, Luen Laock, one of the first Swedish clergymen that came to Pennsylvania, told the traveler Kalm, that in his younger days, he had once been very much frightened by a Cockroach, which crept into his ear while he was asleep. Waking suddenly, he jumped out of bed, which caused the insect, most probably out of fear, to strive with all its strength to get deeper into his skull, producing such excruciating pain that he imagined his head was bursting, and he almost fell senseless to the floor. Hastening, however, to the well, he drew a bucket of water, and threw some in his ear. The Roach then finding itself in danger of being drowned, quickly pushed out backward, and as quickly delivered the poor Swede from his pain and fears.248
The proverbial expression “Sound as a Roach” is supposed to have been derived from familiarity with the legend and attributes of the Saint Roche,—the esteemed saint of all afflicted with the plague, a disease of common occurrence in England when the streets were narrow, and without sewers, houses without boarded floors, and our ancestors without linen. They believed that the miraculous St. Roche could make them as “sound” as himself.249
A quite common superstitious practice, in order to rid a house of Cockroaches, is in vogue in our country at the present time. It is no other than to address these pests a written letter containing the following words, or to this effect: “O, Roaches, you have troubled me long enough, go now and trouble my neighbors.” This letter must be put where they most swarm, after sealing and going through with the other customary forms of letter writing. It is well, too, to write legibly and punctuate according to rule.
Another receipt for driving away Cockroaches is as follows: Close in an envelope several of these insects, and drop it in the street unseen, and the remaining Roaches will all go to the finder of the parcel.
It is also said that if a looking-glass be held before Roaches, they will be so frightened as to leave the premises.
A firm, which has been established in London for seven years, and which manufactures exclusively poison known to the trade as the “Phosphor Paste for the Destruction of Black-beetles, Cockroaches, rats, mice,” etc., has given to Mr. Mayhew the following information:
“We have now sold this vermin poison for seven years, but we have never had an application for our composition from any street-seller. We have seen, a year or two since, a man about London who used to sell beetle-wafers; but as we knew that kind of article to be entirely useless, we were not surprised to find that he did not succeed in making a living. We have not heard of him for some time, and have no doubt he is dead, or has taken up some other line of employment.
“It is a strange fact, perhaps; but we do not know anything, or scarcely anything, as to the kind of people and tradesmen who purchase our poison—to speak the truth, we do not like to make too many inquiries of our customers. Sometimes, when they have used more than their customary quantity, we have asked, casually, how it was and to what kind of business people they disposed of it, and we have always met with an evasive sort of answer. You see tradesmen don’t like to divulge too much; for it must be a poor kind of profession or calling that there are no secrets in; and, again, they fancy we want to know what description of trades use the most of our composition, so that we might supply them direct from ourselves. From this cause we have made a rule not to inquire curiously into the matters of our customers. We are quite content to dispose of the quantity we do, for we employ six travelers to call on chemists and oilmen for the town trade, and four for the country.
“The other day an elderly lady from High Street, Camden Town, called upon us: she stated that she was overrun with black beetles, and wished to buy some of our paste from ourselves, for she said she always found things better if you purchased them of the maker, as you were sure to get them stronger, and by that means avoided the adulteration of the shopkeepers. But as we have said we would not supply a single box to any one, not wishing to give our agents any cause for complaint, we were obliged to refuse to sell to the old lady.
“We don’t care to say how many boxes we sell in the year; but we can tell you, sir, that we sell more for beetle poisoning in the summer than in the winter, as a matter of course. When we find that a particular district uses almost an equal quantity all the year round, we make sure that that is a rat district; for where there is not the heat of summer to breed beetles, it must follow that the people wish to get rid of rats.
“Brixton, Hackney, Ball’s Pond, and Lower Road, Islington, are the places that use most of our paste, those districts lying low, and being consequently damp. Camden Town, though it is in a high situation, is very much infested with beetles; it is a clayey soil, you understand, which retains moisture, and will not allow it to filter through like gravel. This is why in some very low districts, where the houses are built on gravel, we sell scarcely any of our paste.
“As the farmers say, a good fruit year is a good fly year; so we say, a good dull, wet summer, is a good beetle summer; and this has been a very fertile year, and we only hope it will be as good next year.
“We don’t believe in rat-destroyers; they profess to kill with weasels and a lot of things, and sometimes even say they can charm them away. Captains of vessels, when they arrive in the docks, will employ these people; and, as we say, they generally use our composition, but as long as their vessels are cleared of the vermin, they don’t care to know how it is done. A man who drives about in a cart, and does a great business in this way, we have reason to believe uses a great quantity of our Phosphor Paste. He comes from somewhere down the East-end or Whitechapel way.
“Our prices are too high for the street-sellers. Your street-seller can only afford to sell an article made by a person in but a very little better position than himself. Even our small boxes cost at the trade price two shillings a dozen, and when sold will only produce three shillings; so you can imagine the profit is not enough for the itinerant vendor.
“Bakers don’t use much of our paste, for they seem to think it no use to destroy the vermin—beetles and bakers’ shops generally go together.”250
If a black beetle enters your room, or flies against you, severe illness and perhaps death will soon follow. I have never heard this superstition but in Maryland.
Mantidæ—Soothsayers, etc.
We now come to a very extraordinary family of insects, the Mantidæ. “Imagination itself,” as Dr. Shaw well observes, “can hardly conceive shapes more strange than those exhibited by some particular species.”251 “They are called Mantes; that is, fortune-tellers,” says Mouffet, “either because by their coming (for they first of all appear) they do show the spring to be at hand, as Anacreon, the poet, sang; or else they foretell death and famine, as Cælias, the scholiast of Theocritus, writes; or, lastly, because it always holds up its fore-feet, like hands, praying, as it were, after the manner of their divines, who in that gesture did pour out their supplications to their gods. So divine a creature is this esteemed, that if a childe aske the way to such a place, she will stretch out one of her feet and show him the right way, and seldome or never misse. As she resembleth those diviners in the elevation of her hands, so also in likeness of motion, for they do not sport themselves as others do, nor leap, nor play, but walking softly she returns her modesty, and showes forth a kind of mature gravity.”252
The name Mantis is of Greek origin, and signifies diviner. In one of the Idylls of Theocritus, however, it is employed to designate a thin, young girl, with slender and elongated arms. Præmacram ac pertenuem puellam μαντιν. Corpore prælongo, pedibus etiam prælongis, locustæ genus.
These insects, Mantis oratoria, religiosa, etc., in consequence of their having, as Mouffet says, their fore-feet extended as if they were praying, are called in France, Devin, and Prega-diou or Prêche-dieu; and with us, Praying-insects, Soothsayers, and Diviners. They are also often called from their singular shape Camel-crickets.
The Mantis was observed by the Greeks in soothsaying;253 and the Hindoos displayed the same reverential consideration of its movements and flight.254
But, in modern times, the superstition respecting the sanctity of the Mantis begins in Southern Europe, and is found in almost every other quarter of the globe, at least wherever a characteristic species of the insect is found.
In the southern provinces of France, where the Mantis is very abundant, both the characters of praying and pointing out the lost way, as above mentioned by Mouffet, are still ascribed to it by the peasantry, as is evidenced by the above mentioned names they know them by. And here, as wherever else this superstition obtains, it is considered a great crime to injure the Mantis, and as, at least, a very culpable neglect not to place it out of the way of any danger to which it seems exposed.
The Turks and other Moslems have been much impressed by the actions of the common Mantis, the religiosa,255 which greatly resemble some of their own attitudes of prayer. They readily recognize intelligence and pious intentions in its actions, and accordingly treat it with respect and attention, not indeed as in itself an object of reverence or superstition, but as a fellow-worshiper of God, whom they believe that all creatures praise, with more or less consciousness and intelligence.256
But it is in Africa, and especially in Southern Africa, that the Mantis (here the Mantis causta)257 receives its highest honors. The attention of the travelers and missionaries in that quarter was necessarily much drawn to the kind of religious veneration paid to an insect, and from their accounts, though very contradictory, some curious information may be collected.
The authority of Peter Kolben, an early German traveler to the Cape of Good Hope, is as follows: That the Hottentots regard as a good deity an insect of the “beetle-kind” peculiar to their country. This “beetle-god” is described by him to be “about the size of a child’s little finger, the back green, the belly speckled white and red, with two wings and two horns.” He also assures us that whenever the Hottentots meet this insect, they pay it the highest honor and veneration; and that if it visits a kraal they assemble about it as if a divinity had descended among them; and even kill a sheep or two as a thank-offering, and esteem it an omen of the greatest happiness and prosperity. They believe, also, its appearance expiates all their guilt; and if the insect lights upon one of them, such person is looked upon as a saint, be it man or woman, and ever after treated with uncommon respect. The kraal then kills the fattest ox for a thank-offering; and the caul, powdered with bukhu, and twisted like a rope, is put on, like a collar, about the neck, and there must remain till it rots off.258
Kolben, in another place, describes the Mantis under the name of the Gold-beetle, saying that its head and wings are of a gold color, the back green, etc., as above.259
Mr. Kolben, again speaking of this singular reverence, remarks that the Hottentots will run every hazard to secure the safety of this fortunate insect, and are cautious to the last degree of giving it the slightest annoyance, and relates the following anecdote:
“A German, who had a country-seat about six miles from the fort, having given leave to some Hottentots to turn their cattle for awhile upon his land there, they removed to the place with their kraal. A son of this German, a brisk young fellow, was amusing himself in the kraal, when the deified insect appeared. The Hottentots, upon sight, ran tumultuously to adore it; while the young fellow tried to catch it, in order to see the effect such capture would produce among them. But how great was the general cry and agony when they saw it in his hands! They stared with distraction in their eyes at him, and at one another. ‘See, see, see,’ said they. ‘Ah! what is he going to do? Will he kill it? will he kill it?’ Every limb of them shaking through apprehensions for its fate. ‘Why,’ said the young fellow, who very well understood them, ‘do you make such a hideous noise? and why such agonies for this paltry animal?’ ‘Ah! sir,’ they replied, with the utmost concern, ‘’tis a divinity. ’Tis come from heaven; ’tis come on a good design. Ah! do not hurt it—do not offend it. We are the most miserable wretches upon earth if you do. This ground will be under a curse, and the crime will never be forgiven.’ This was not enough for the young German. He had a mind to carry the experiment a little farther. He seemed not, therefore, to be moved with their petitions and remonstrances; but made as if he intended to maim or destroy it. On this appearance of cruelty they started, and ran to and again like people frantic; asked him, where and what his conscience was? and how he durst think of perpetrating a crime, which would bring upon his head all the curses and thunders of heaven. But this not prevailing, they fell all prostrate on the ground before the young fellow, and with streaming eyes and the loudest cries, besought him to spare the creature and give it its liberty. The young German now yielded, and, having let the insect fly, the Hottentots jumped and capered and shouted in all the transports of joy; and, running after the animal, rendered it the customary divine honors. But the creature settled upon none of them, and there was not one sainted upon this occasion.”260
Afterward, Mr. Kolben, discoursing with these Hottentots, took occasion to ask them concerning the utmost limit they carried the belief of the sanctity and avenging spirit of this insect, when they declared to him, that if the German had killed it, all their cattle would certainly have been destroyed by wild beasts, and they themselves, every man, woman, and child of them, brought to a miserable end. That they believed the kraal to be of evil destiny where this insect is rarely seen. Mr. Kolben asserts that they would sooner give up their lives than renounce the slightest item of their belief.261
Dr. Sparrman, a Swedish traveler into the country of the Hottentots and Caffres between the years 1772 and 1779, in speaking of the Mantis, called in his time the “Hottentot’s God,” denies the above statement of Mr. Kolben, and says the Hottentots are so far from worshiping it, that they several times caught some of them, and gave them to him to put needles through them, by way of preserving them, in the same manner as he did with the other insects. But there is, he adds, a diminutive species of this insect, which some think would be a crime, as well as very dangerous, to do any harm to, but that it was only a superstitious notion, and not any kind of religious worship.262
Dr. Thunberg, who traveled in South Africa about the same time as Dr. Sparrman, corroborates the latter’s statement, and says he could see no reason for the supposition that the Hottentots worshiped the Mantis, but, he adds, it certainly was held in some degree of esteem, so that they would not willingly hurt, and deemed that person a creature fortunate on which it settled, though without paying it any sort of adoration.263
Dr. Vanderkemp, in his account of Caffraria, after describing the Mantis, says that the natives call it oumtoanizoulou, the Child of Heaven, and adds that “the Hottentots regard it as almost a deity, and offer their prayers to it, begging that it may not destroy them.”264
Mr. Kirchener, speaking of the same people, says they reverence a little insect, known by the name of the Creeping Leaf, a sight of which they conceive indicates something fortunate, and to kill it they suppose will bring a curse upon the perpetrator.265
Mr. Evan Evans, a missionary to the Cape of Good Hope, gives an account of a conversation which he had with the Hottentot driver of his wagon, which seems to make out the claims of the Mantis to be the God of the Hottentots—as it is even yet called. The driver directed his attention to “a small insect,” which he called by its above-mentioned familiar name, and alluded to the notions he had in former times connected with it. “I asked him, ‘Did you ever worship this insect then?’ He answered, ‘Oh, yes! a thousand times; always before I came to Bethelsdorf. Whenever I saw this little creature, I would fall down on my knees before him and pray.’ ‘What did you pray to him for?’ ‘I asked him to give me a good master, and plenty of thick milk and flesh.’ ‘Did you pray for nothing else?’ ‘No, sir; I did not then know that I wanted anything else.… Whenever I used to see this animal (holding the insect still in his hand) I used sometimes to fall down immediately before it; but if it was in the wagon-road, or in a foot-path, I used to push it up as gently as I could, to place it behind a bush, for fear a wagon should crush it, or some men or beasts would put it to death. If a Hottentot, by some accident, killed or injured this creature, he was sure to be unlucky all his lifetime, and could never shoot an elephant or a buffalo afterward.’”266
Niuhoff, in his account of his travels in Java in 1643, tells us “the Javanese set two of these little creatures (Mantes) a fighting together, and lay money on both sides, as we do at a cock-match.”267 Among the Chinese also this quarrelsome property in the genus Mantis is turned into an entertainment. They are so fond of gaming and witnessing fights between animals that, as says Mr. Barrow in his Travels, “they have even extended their inquiries after fighting animals into the insect tribe, and have discovered a species of Gryllus or Locust that will attack each other with such ferocity as seldom to quit their hold without bringing away at the same time a limb of their antagonist. These little creatures are fed and kept apart in bamboo cages, and the custom of making them devour each other is so common that, during the summer months, scarcely a boy is to be seen without his cage of grasshoppers.”268 The boys in Washington City, who call the Mantis the “Rear-horse,” are also fond of this amusement.
Among the legends of St. Francis Xavier, the following is found. Seeing a Mantis moving along in its solemn way, holding up its two fore-legs, as in the act of devotion, the Saint desired it to sing the praises of God, whereupon the insect caroled forth a fine canticle.269
The Mantis religiosa of America is said to make a most interesting pet when tamed, which can be done in a very short time and with but little pains. Professor Glover, of the Maryland Agricultural College, tells me he once knew a lady in Washington who kept a Mantis on her window which soon grew so tame as to take readily a fly or other small insect out of her hand. But Mrs. Taylor, in her Orthopterian Defense, has given us the particulars in full of a Mantis which she had petted. She speaks of it under the name of “Queen Bess,” and in her most interesting style, as follows:
“Queen Bess, of famous memory, would alight on my shoulder and take all her food from me half a dozen times a day. When she omitted her visit I knew she had been hunting on her own account. All night long she would keep watch and guard under the mosquito-net. The silk (the thread with which the insect was bound) was fastened to the post of the bed; and woe betide an unfortunate mosquito who fancied for his supper a drop of claret. It was the drollest, the most laughter-moving sensation, to feel one of these trumpeters saluting your nose or forehead, and hear Queen Bess approaching with those long claws, creeping slowly, softly, nearer and nearer; to feel the fine prick of the lancet setting in for a tipple; then you would suppose a dozen fine needles had been suddenly drawn across the part; then, presto! Bess’s strong, saber-like claws had the jolly trumpeter tucked into her capacious jaws before you could open your eyes to ascertain the state of affairs.
“These creatures very seldom fly far,” continues Mrs. Taylor, “but walk in a most stately and dignified manner. Queen Bess could not bear to be overlooked or slighted(!); and as sure as she saw me bending over the magnifier with an insect, and I thought she was ten yards off, the insect would be incontinently snapped out of my fingers. Many a valuable specimen disappeared in this way. I learned to put her at these times in the sounding-board of an Æolian harp, which was generally placed in the window. Her majesty liked music of this kind amazingly; as the vibration was felt though not heard. I presume she fancied she was serenaded by the singing leaves of the forest. I knew she would have remained there spell-bound until driven forth by hunger, if I did not remove her when I was not afraid of her company.
“As I have begun my ‘experiences,’” continues the same writer, “I will go through with them and confess that I was obliged from circumstances to attach more than accident to her prophetic capacity—her fortune-telling. I have not a grain of superstition to contend against in other matters, having so much reverence for the Creator of all things that I certainly have no fear of anything earthly or spiritually conveyed to the senses. But I was taught by the saddest teacher, Experience, that whenever Queen Bess’s refusal went unheeded I was the sufferer. The first time I ever tried it was to determine a vacillating presentiment I felt about trying a new horse whose reputation was far from good. I placed Queen Bess before me, held up my finger:
“‘Attention! Queen Bess, would you advise me to try that horse?’
“She was standing on her hind legs, her antennæ erect, wings wide spread. I repeated the question. Antennæ fell; wings folded; and down she went, gradually, until her head and long thorax were buried beneath her front legs. I took her advice, and did not venture. Two days later the horse threw his rider and killed him.
“Here was the turning-point. Was I to allow such folly to master me? If French girls do take a Mantis at the junction of three roads, and ask her on which their lover will come, and watch the insect turning and examining each road with her weird sibyl head,270—if French girls commit such follies, should I, a staid American woman, follow their example—putting my faith in the caprices of an insect? Pshaw! I was above such folly. So the next time Queen Bess was consulted a more decided refusal was given; but I disregarded her warning, and most sorely did I repent it. Again she would approve, by standing more erect, if possible, spreading and closing her wings; then all was sunshine with me. So it went for many months. Many others have had the same experience, if they will confess it honestly. I learned to obey the hidden head more carefully than any other, I am sorry to say; and I never, in one single instance, knew her to refuse her opinion; and I never knew it to be wrong in whatever way she announced it.”
This same superstitious woman says that boys and girls try their future expectations by making a mimic chariot, ballasting it with small pebbles, shot, or any such like thing, and harnessing the Mantis in with silk. Upon being freighted she rises immediately, as if to try the weight; if too heavy she will not fly. Lighten the chariot, and she will soar away to a tree or a field; then her owner is to be a lucky boy. If she will not go at all, or only a short distance, and soon come down, misfortune is to be his doom.271
Other superstitions among us, with respect to the Mantis are as follows:
When the Mantis (Rear-horse) kneels, it sees an angel in the way, or hears the rustle of its wings. When it alights on your hand, you are about to make the acquaintance of a distinguished person; if it alights on your head, a great honor will shortly be conferred upon you. If it injures you in any way, which it does but seldom, you will lose a valued friend by calumny. Never kill a Mantis, as it bears charms against evil.
From the great resemblance of many species of Mantis to the leaves of the trees upon which they feed, some travelers, who have observed them, have declared that they saw the leaves of trees become living creatures, and take flight. Madame Merian informs us of a similar opinion among the Indians of Surinam, who believed these insects grew like leaves upon the trees, and when they were mature, loosened themselves and crawled, or flew away.
We find also in the works of Piso an account of insects becoming plants. Speaking of the Mantis, that author says: “Those little animals change into a green and tender plant, which is of two hands breadth. The feet are fixed into the ground first; from these, when necessary humidity is attracted, roots grow out, and strike into the ground; thus they change by degrees, and in a short time become a perfect plant. Sometimes only the lower part takes the nature and form of a plant, while the upper part remains as before, living and movable; after some time the animal is gradually converted into a plant. In this Nature seems to operate in a circle, by a continual retrograde motion.”272
There may be, however, much truth in this remarkable metamorphosis; for, that an insect may strike root into the earth, and, from the co-operation of heat and moisture, congenial to vegetation, produce a plant of the cryptogamic kind, cannot be disputed. Westwood states that he has seen a species of Clavaria, both of the undivided and branched kinds, which had sprung from insects, and were four times larger than the insects themselves. In truth, it cannot then be denied that Piso may not have seen a plant of a proportionate magnitude which had likewise grown out of a Mantis. The pupæ of bees, wasps, and cicadas, have been known to become the nidus of a plant, to throw up stems from the front part of the head, and change in every respect into a vegetable, and still retain the shell and exterior appearance of the parent insect at the root. Specimens of these vegetated animals are frequently brought from the West Indies. Mr. Drury had a beetle in the perfect state, from every part of which small stalks and fibers sprouted forth; they were entirely different from the tufts of hair that are observed in a few Coleopterous insects, such as the Buprestis fascicularius of the Cape of Good Hope, and were certainly a vegetable production.273 Mr. Atwood, in his account of Dominica, describes a “vegetable fly” as follows: “It is of the appearance and size of a small Cock-chafer, and buries itself in the ground, where it dies; and from its body springs up a small plant, resembling a young coffee tree, only that its leaves are smaller. The plant is often overlooked, from the supposition people have of its being no other than a coffee plant, but on examining it properly, the difference is easily distinguished.… The head, body, and feet of the insect appearing at the foot as perfect as when alive.”274
Dr. Colin, of Philadelphia, has mentioned, also, on the authority of a missionary, a “vegetable fly,” similar to the last mentioned, on the Ohio River.275
The inhabitants of the Sechell Islands raise the Mantis siccifolia, or Dry-leaf Mantis, as an object of commerce and natural history.
Achetidæ—Crickets.
In the Island of Barbados, the natives look upon the creaking chirp of a species of Cricket, to which Hughes has given the name of the Ash-colored or Sickly Cricket, when heard in the house, as an omen of death to some one of the family.277
In England, also, is the Cricket’s chirp sometimes looked upon as prognosticating death. “When Blonzelind expired,” Gay, in his Pastoral Dirge, says,
So also in Reed’s Old Plays is the Cricket’s cry ominous of death:
The same superstition is found in the following line from the Œdipus of Dryden and Lee:
Gaule mentions, among other vain observations and superstitious ominations thereupon, “the Cricket’s chirping behind the chimney stack, or creeping on the foot-pace.”279
Dr. Nathaniel Horne, after saying that “by the flying and crying of ravens over their houses, especially in the dusk of evening, and when one is sick, they conclude death,” adds, “the same they conclude of a Cricket crying in a house where there was wont to be none.”280
“Some sort of people,” says Mr. Ramsay, in his Elminthologia, “at every turn, upon every accident, how are they therewith terrified! If but a Cricket unusually appear, or they hear but the clicking of a Death-watch, as they call it, they, or some one else in the family, shall die!”281
Gilbert White, the accurate naturalist of Selborne, speaking of Crickets, says: “They are the house-wife’s barometer, foretelling her when it will rain; and are prognostics sometimes, she thinks, of ill or good luck, of the death of a near relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being the constant companions of her solitary hours, they naturally become the objects of her superstition.”282
The voice of the Cricket, says the Spectator, has struck more terror than the roaring of a lion.
Mrs. Bray also notices that the Cricket’s chirp in England, which in almost all other countries, and in that too in some families, as will be shown hereafter, is considered a cheerful and a welcome note, the harbinger of joy,—is deemed by the peasantry ominous of sorrow and evil.283
“In Dumfries-shire,” says Sir William Jardine, “it is a common superstition that if Crickets forsake a house which they have long inhabited, some evil will befall the family; generally the death of some member is portended. In like manner the presence or return of this cheerful little insect is lucky, and portends some good to the family.”284
Melton also says,—“17. That it is a sign of death to some in that house where Crickets have been many years, if on a sudden they forsake the chimney.”285
The departure of Crickets from a hearth where they have been heard, is, at the present time, in England, considered an omen of misfortune.286
From the above statements of Mr. White, Mrs. Bray, and Sir William Jardine, we learn that in England the Cricket’s chirp is not always ominous of evil, but sometimes also of good luck, of joy, and of the approach of an absent lover.
A correspondent of the “Notes and Queries” mentions the Cricket’s cry as foreboding good luck.287 So also a writer for “The Mirror,” remarking, it is singular that the House-cricket should by some persons be considered an unlucky, by others a lucky, inmate of the mansion. Those who hold the latter opinion, he adds, consider the destruction of these insects the means of bringing misfortunes on their habitations.288 Grose thus expresses this last superstition: Persons killing these insects (including the Lady-bird, before mentioned) will infallibly, within the course of the year, break a bone, or meet with some other dreadful misfortune.289
That the belief that the appearance of Crickets in a house is a good omen, and prognosticates cheerfulness and plenty, is pretty generally entertained in England, may be inferred also from the manner in which it has been embodied by Cowper, in his address to a Cricket
His words are:
And again in that admirable little tale of Charles Dickens, entitled “The Cricket on the Hearth,” this good and happy superstition is embodied. “It’s sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has been so. To have a Cricket on the hearth is the luckiest thing in the world,” says its heroine.
All these superstitions are more or less entertained in America, brought here by the English themselves, and retained by their descendants. That the Cricket is the “harbinger of good,” it gives me pleasure to say, is the most common.
Another superstition obtaining in this country, and particularly in Maryland and Virginia, is that Crickets are old folks and ought not therefore to be destroyed. This probably arose from Crickets being found about the kitchen hearth where the old folks were accustomed to sit.
Milton chose for his contemplative pleasures a spot where Crickets resorted:
The learned Scaliger is said to have been particularly delighted with the chirping of these animals, and was accustomed to keep them in a box for his amusement in his study.291
Mrs. Taylor, the writer of a very interesting series of papers on insects for Harper’s Magazine, relates that in her travels through Wales, she obtained several House-crickets in the old Castle of Caernarvon. These she carried with her, in her journeyings to and fro over the Kingdom, for several years, and at last brought them to this country, where they were liberated in the snuggest corner of a Southern hearth. Again a wanderer for many years, she went back to the old house to see how her chirping friends were coming on, but, alas! she was told by the then residents, with the utmost calmness, “they had had great difficulty in scalding them out, and they hoped there was not one left on the premises!”292
In certain countries of Africa, Crickets are reported to constitute an article of commerce. Some persons rear them, feed them in a kind of iron oven, and sell them to the natives, who are very fond of their music, thinking it induces sleep.293 De Pauw finds some traces of the Egyptian worship of the Scarabæus in this fondness for the music of the “holy Crickets,” as he calls them, of Madagascar! By the rearing of which insects, he tells us, the Africans make a living, and the rich would think themselves at enmity with heaven, if they did not preserve whole swarms in ovens constructed expressly for that purpose.294
The youth of Germany, Jaeger says, are extremely fond of Field-crickets, so much so, that there is scarcely a boy to be seen who has not several small boxes made expressly for keeping these insects in. So much delighted are they, too, with their music, that they carry these boxes of Crickets into their bed-rooms at night, and are soothed to sleep with their chirping lullaby.295
On the contrary, others, as has been before mentioned, think there is something ominous and melancholy in the Cricket’s cry, and use every endeavor to banish this insect from their houses. “Lidelius tells us,” says Goldsmith, “of a woman who was very much incommoded by Crickets, and tried, but in vain, every method of banishing them from her house. She at last accidentally succeeded; for having one day invited several guests to her house, where there was a wedding, in order to increase the festivity of the entertainment, she procured drums and trumpets to entertain them. The noise of these was so much greater than what the little animals were accustomed to, that they instantly forsook their situation, and were never heard in that mansion more.”296 Like many other noisy persons, Crickets like to hear nobody louder than themselves.
In the Island of Sumatra, Capt. Stuart tells me, a black Cricket is looked upon with great respect, amounting almost to adoration. It is deemed a grievous sin to kill it.
Baskets full of Field-crickets, Lopes de Gomara says, were found among the provisions of the Indians of Jamaica when they were first discovered.297
“The Criquet called Gryllus,” says Pliny in the words of Holland, “doth mitigat catarrhs and all asperities offending the throat, if the same bee rubbed therewith: also if a man doe but touch the amygdals or almonds of the throat, with the hand wherewith he hath bruised or crushed the said Criquet, it will appease the inflamation thereof.”298 Again, “The Cricket digged up and applied to the plase, earth and all where it lay, is very good for the ears. Nigridius,” continues Pliny, “attributeth many properties to this poore creature, and esteemeth it not a little: but the Magicians much more by a faire deale: and why so? Forsooth because it goeth, as it were, reculing backward, it pierceth and boreth a hole into the ground, and never ceaseth all night long to creake very shrill.
“The manner of hunting and catching them is this, They take a flie and tie it above the middest at the end of a long haire of one’s head, and so put the said flie into the mouth of the Cricquet’s hole; but first they blow the dust away with their mouth, for fear lest the flie should hide herself therein; the Cricket spies the sillie flie, seaseth upon her presently and claspeth her round, and so they are both drawne foorth together by the said haire.”299
At the present time, children in France practice the same method of capturing Crickets for amusement; substituting, however, an ant for the “sillie flie,” and a long straw for “the haire of one’s head.” Hence comes the common proverb in France, il est sot comme un grillon. A ruse for capturing the larva of the Cicindela, now commonly practiced by entomologists, is founded on the same principle.
Pliny further says: “The Cricquets above rehearsed, either reduced into a liniment, or else bound too, whole as they be, cureth the accident of the lap of the eare, wounds, contusions, bruises,” etc.300
Dr. James, quoting Schroder and Dale, says: “The ashes of the Cricket (Gryllus domesticus) exhibited, are said to be diuretic; the expressed juice, dropped into the eyes, is a remedy for weakness of the sight, and alleviates disorders of the tonsils, if rubbed on them.”301
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.
Gryllidæ—Grasshoppers.
Mr. Hughes, after describing an ash-colored Grasshopper (which may be his ash-colored cricket before mentioned),302 remarks that the superstitious 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
Athenæus tells us the ancient Greeks used to eat the common Grasshopper and the Monkey-grasshopper as provocatives of the appetite. Aristophanes says: