ORDER VI.
LEPIDOPTERA.
Papilionidæ—Butterflies.
The lepidopterous insects in general, soon after they emerge from the pupa state, and commonly during their first flight, discharge some drops of a red-colored fluid, more or less intense in different species, which, in some instances, where their numbers have been considerable, have produced the appearance of a “shower of blood,” as this natural phenomenon is commonly called.
Showers of blood have been recorded by historians and poets as preternatural—have been considered in the light of prodigies, and regarded where they have happened as fearful prognostics of impending evils.
There are two passages in Homer, which, however poetical, are applicable to a rain of this kind; and among the prodigies which took place after the death of the great dictator, Ovid particularly mentions a shower of blood:
Among the numerous prodigies reported by Livy to have happened in the year 214 B.C., it is instanced that, at Mantua, a stagnating piece of water, caused by the overflowing of the River Mincius, appeared as of blood; and, in the cattle-market at Rome, a shower of blood fell in the Istrian Street. After mentioning several other remarkable phenomena that happened during that year, Livy concludes by saying that these prodigies were expiated, conformably to the answers of the Aruspices, by victims of the greater kinds, and supplication was ordered to be performed to all the deities who had shrines at Rome.741 Again it is stated by Livy, that many alarming prodigies were seen at Rome in the year 181 B.C., and others reported from abroad; among which was a shower of blood, which fell in the courts of the temples of Vulcan and Concord. After mentioning that the image of Juno Sospita shed tears, and that a pestilence broke out in the country, this writer adds, that these prodigies, and the mortality which prevailed, alarmed the Senate so much, that they ordered the consuls to sacrifice to such gods as their judgment should direct, victims of the larger kinds, and that the Decemvirs should consult their books. Pursuant to their direction, a supplication for one day was proclaimed to be performed at every shrine at Rome; and they advised, besides, and the Senate voted, and the consul proclaimed, that there should be a supplication and public worship for three days throughout all Italy.742 In the year 169 B.C., Livy also mentions that a shower of blood fell in the middle of the day. The Decemvirs were again called upon to consult their books, and again were sacrifices offered to the deities.743 The account, also, of Livy, of the bloody sweat, on some of the statues of the gods, must be referred to the same phenomenon; as the predilection of those ages to marvel, says Thomas Brown, and the want of accurate investigation in the cases recorded, as well as the rare occurrence of these atmospherical depositions in our own times, inclines us to include them among the blood-red drops deposited by insects.744
In Stow’s Annales of England, we have two accounts of showers of blood; and from an edition printed in London in 1592, we make our quotations: “Rivallus, sonne of Cunedagius, succeeded his father, in whose time (in the year 766 B.C.) it rained bloud 3 dayes: after which tempest ensued a great multitude of venemous flies, which slew much people, and then a great mortalitie throughout this lande, caused almost desolation of the same.”745 The second account is as follows: “In the time of Brithricus (A.D. 786) it rayned blood, which falling on men’s clothes, appeared like crosses.”746
Hollingshed, Graften, and Fabyan have also recorded these instances in their respective chronicles of England.747
A remarkable instance of bloody rain is introduced into the very interesting Icelandic ghost story of Thorgunna. It appears that in the year of our Lord 1009, a woman called Thorgunna came from the Hebrides to Iceland, where she stayed at the house of Thorodd: and during the hay season, a shower of blood fell, but only, singularly, on that portion of the hay she had not piled up as her share, which so appalled her that she betook herself to her bed, and soon afterward died. She left, to finish the story, a remarkable will, which, from not being executed, was the cause of several violent deaths, the appearance of ghosts, and, finally, a legal action of ejectment against the ghosts, which, it need hardly be said, drove them effectually away.748
In 1017, a shower of blood fell in Aquitaine;749 and Sleidan relates that in the year 1553 a vast multitude of Butterflies swarmed through a great part of Germany, and sprinkled plants, leaves, buildings, clothes, and men with bloody drops, as if it had rained blood.750 We learn also from Bateman’s Doome, that these “drops of bloude upon hearbes and trees,” in 1553, were deemed among the forewarnings of the deaths of Charles and Philip, dukes of Brunswick.751
In Frankfort, in the year 1296, among other prodigies, some spots of blood led to a massacre of the Jews, in which ten thousand of these unhappy descendants of Abraham lost their lives.752
In the beginning of July, 1608, an extensive shower of blood took place at Aix, in France, which threw the people of that place into the utmost consternation, and, which is a much more important fact, led to the first satisfactory and philosophical explanation of this phenomenon, but too late, alas! to save the Jews of Frankfort. This explanation was given by M. Peiresc, a celebrated philosopher of that place, and is thus referred to by his biographer, Gassendi: “Nothing in the whole year 1608 did more please him than that he observed and philosophized about, the bloody rain, which was commonly reported to have fallen about the beginning of July; great drops thereof were plainly to be seen, both in the city itself, upon the walls of the church-yard of the church, which is near the city wall, and upon the city walls themselves; also upon the walls of villages, hamlets, and towns, for some miles round about; for in the first place, he went himself to see those wherewith the stones were colored, and did what he could to come to speak with those husbandmen, who, beyond Lambesk, were reported to have been affrighted at the falling of said rain, that they left their work, and ran as fast as their legs could carry them into the adjacent houses. Whereupon, he found that it was a fable that was reported, touching those husbandmen. Nor was he pleased that naturalists should refer this kind of rain to vapours drawn up out of red earth aloft in the air, which congealing afterwards into liquor, fall down in this form; because such vapours as are drawne aloft by heat, ascend without color, as we may know by the alone example of red roses, out of which the vapours that arise by heat are congealed into transparent water. He was less pleased with the common people, and some divines, who judged that it was the work of the devils and witches who had killed innocent young children; for this he counted a mere conjecture, possibly also injurious to the goodness and providence of God.
“In the mean while an accident happened, out of which he conceived he had collected the true cause thereof. For, some months before, he shut up in a box a certain palmer-worm which he had found, rare for its bigness and form; which, when he had forgotten, he heard a buzzing in the box, and when he opened it, found the palmer-worm, having cast its coat, to be turned into a beautiful Butterfly, which presently flew away, leaving in the bottom of the box a red drop as broad as an ordinary sous or shilling; and because this happened about the beginning of the same month, and about the same time an incredible multitude of Butterflies were observed flying in the air, he was therefore of opinion that such kind of Butterflies resting on the walls had there shed such like drops, and of the same bigness. Whereupon, he went the second time, and found, by experience, that those drops were not to be found on the house-tops, nor upon the round sides of the stones which stuck out, as it would have happened, if blood had fallen from the sky, but rather where the stones were somewhat hollowed, and in holes, where such small creatures might shroud and nestle themselves. Moreover, the walls which were so spotted, were not in the middle of towns, but they were such as bordered upon the fields, nor were they on the highest parts, but only so moderately high as Butterflies are commonly wont to fly.
“Thus, therefore, he interpreted that which Gregory of Tours relates, touching a bloody rain seen at Paris in divers places, in the days of Childebert, and on a certain house in the territory of Seulis; also that which is storied, touching raining of blood about the end of June, in the days of King Robert; so that the blood which fell upon flesh, garments, or stones could not be washed out, but that which fell on wood might; for it was the same season of Butterflies, and experience hath taught us, that no water will wash these spots out of the stones, while they are fresh and new. When he had said these and such like things to various, a great company of auditors being present, it was agreed that they should go together and search out the matter, and as they went up and down, here and there, through the fields, they found many drops upon stones and rocks; but they were only on the hollow and under parts of the stones, but not upon those which lay most open to the skies.”753
This memorable shower of blood was produced by the Vanessa urticæ, or V. polychloros, most probably, since these species of Butterflies are said to have been uncommonly plentiful at the time when, and in the particular district where, the phenomenon was observed.754755
Nicoll, in his Diary, p. 8, informs us that on the 28th of May, 1650, “there rained blood the space of three miles in the Earl of Buccleuch’s bounds (Scotland), near the English border, which was verefied in presence of the Committee of State.”756
We learn from Fountainhall that on Sunday, May 1st, 1687, a young woman of noted piety, Janet Fraser by name, the daughter of a weaver in the parish of Closeburn, Dumfriesshire, went out to the fields with a young female companion, and sat down to read the Bible not far from her father’s house. Feeling thirsty, she went to the river-side (the Nith) to get a drink, leaving her Bible open at the place where she had been reading, which presented the verses of the 34th chapter of Isaiah, beginning—“My sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment,” etc. On returning, she found a patch of something like blood covering this very text. In great surprise, she carried the book home, where a young man tasted the substance with his tongue, and found it of a saltless or insipid flavor. On the two succeeding Sundays, while the same girl was reading the Bible in the open air, similar blotches of matter, like blood, fell upon the leaves. She did not perceive it in the act of falling till it was about an inch from the book. “It is not blood,” our informant adds, “for it is as tough as glue, and will not be scraped off by a knife, as blood will; but it is so like blood, as none can discern any difference by the colour.”757
On Tuesday, Oct. 9th, 1764, “a kind of rain of a red color, resembling blood, fell in many parts of the Duchy of Cleves, which caused great consternation. M. Bouman sent a bottle of it to Dr. Schutte, to know if it contained anything pernicious to health. Something of the like kind fell also at Rhenen, in the Province of Utrecht.”758
Dr. Schutte, to whom was submitted a bottle of this red rain, gave it as his opinion that it was caused by particles of red matter, which had been raised into the atmosphere by a strong wind, and that it was in no way hurtful to mankind or beasts!759
In 1819, a red shower fell in Carniola, which, being analyzed, says Bucke, was found to be impregnated with silex, alumine, and oxide of iron. Red rain fell also at Dixmude, in Flanders, November 2d, 1829; and on the following day at Schenevingen, the acid obtained from which was chloric acid, and the metal cobalt.760
In the year 1780, Rombeag noticed a shower of blood that had excited universal attention, and which he could satisfactorily show to be produced by the flying forth and casting of bees, as the phenomenon in the place around the beehives themselves was remarkably striking. From this fact it is evident that the appearance is attributable to other insects as well as the lepidoptera.761
Bloody rain has also been attributed, with much apparent reason, to other causes still, as the following accounts from reliable authorities show:
In 1848, Dr. Eckhard, of Berlin, when attending a case of cholera, found potatoes and bread within the house spotted with a red coloring matter, which, being forwarded to Ehrenberg, was found by him to be due to the presence of an animalcule, to which he gave the name of the Monas prodigiosa. It was found that other pieces of bread could be inoculated with this matter.762
Swammerdam relates that, one morning in 1670, great excitement was created in the Hague by a report that the lakes and ditches about Leyden were turned to blood. Florence Schuyl, the celebrated professor of physic in the University of Leyden, went down to the canals, and taking home a quantity of this blood-colored matter examined it with a microscope, and found that the water was water still, and had not at all changed its color; but that it was full of small red animals, all alive and very nimble in their motions, the color and prodigious numbers of which gave a reddish tinge to the whole body of the water in which they lived. The animals which thus color the water of lakes and ponds are the Pulices arborescentes of Swammerdam, or the water fleas with branched horns. These creatures are of a reddish yellow or flame color. They live about the sides of ditches, under weeds, and among the mud; and are therefore the less visible, except at a certain time, which is in the month of June. It is at this time these little animals leave their recesses to float about the water, and meet for the propagation of their species; and by this means they become visible in the color which they give to the water. The color in question is visible, more or less, in one part or other of almost all standing waters at this season; and it is always at the same season that the bloody waters have alarmed the ignorant.763
The prodigy, mentioned by Livy, of a stagnating piece of water at Mantua appearing as of blood, was no doubt owing to the appearance of great numbers of the Pulices arborescentes in it.764
Concerning the origin of bloody rain, Swammerdam entertained the same idea as Peiresc; but he does not appear to have verified it from his own observation. He makes the following remarks: “Is it not possible that such red drops might issue from insects, at the time they come fresh from the nymphs, which distil a bloody fluid? This seems to happen especially when such insects are more than ordinarily multiplied in any particular year, as we often experience in the butterflies, flies, gnats, and others.”765
Dust is commonly attributed as the cause of this phenomenon, but will satisfactorily explain only a few instances. A writer for Chambers’ Journal, in an article on showers of red dust, bloody rain, etc., says: “In October, 1846, a fearful and furious hurricane visited Lyon, and the district between that city and Grenoble, during which occurred a fall of blood-rain. A number of drops were caught and preserved, and when the moisture was evaporated, there was seen the same kind of dust (as fell in showers in Genoa in 1846) of a yellowish brown or red color. When placed under the microscope, it exhibited a great proportion of fresh water and marine formations. Phytolytharia were numerous, as also ‘neatly-lobed vegetable scales;’ which, as Ehrenberg observes, is sufficient to disprove the assertion that the substance is found in the atmosphere itself, and is not of European origin. For the first time, a living organism was met with, the ‘Eunota amphyoxis, with its ovaries green, and therefore capable of life.’ Here was a solution of the mystery: the dust, mingling with the drops of water falling from the clouds, produced the red rain. Its appearance is that of reddened water, and it cannot be called blood-like without exaggeration.”766
To conclude the history of bloody rain, the following is most appropriate: In 1841, some negroes, in Wilson County, Tennessee, reported that it had rained blood in the tobacco field where they had been at work; that near noon there was a rattling noise like rain or hail, and drops of blood, as they supposed, fell from a red cloud that was flying over. Prof. Troost, of Nashville, was called upon to explain the phenomenon; and, after citing many instances of red rain, red snow, and so called showers of blood, he concluded his learned article with this opinion: “A wind might have taken up part of an animal, which was in a state of decomposition, and have brought it in contact with an electric cloud, in which it was kept in a state of partial fluidity or viscosity. In this case, the cloud which was seen by the negroes, as the state in which the materials were, is accounted for.”
Prof. Troost published this profound solution in the forty-first volume of Silliman’s Journal; but in the forty-fourth of the same magazine a much more satisfactory one is given, for it is there stated “that the whole affair was a hoax devised by the negroes, who pretended to have seen the shower for the sake of practicing on the credulity of their masters. They had scattered the decaying flesh of a dead hog over the tobacco leaves.”767
Another phenomenon to be particularly noticed in the history of the Butterflies, is their appearance at certain times in countless numbers migrating from place to place. H. Kapp, a writer in the Naturforsch, observed on a calm sunny day a prodigious flight of the Cabbage-Butterfly, Pontia brassicæ, which passed from northeast to southwest, and lasted two hours.768 Kalm, the Swedish traveler, saw these last insects midway in the British Channel.769 Lindley tells us that in Brazil, in the beginning of March, 1803, for many days successively there was an immense flight of white and yellow Butterflies, probably of the same tribe as the Pontia brassicæ. They were observed never to settle, but proceeded in a direction from northwest to southeast. No buildings seemed to stop them from steadily pursuing their course; which being to the ocean, at only a small distance, they must all have inevitably perished. It is to be remarked that at this time no other kind of Butterfly was to be seen, though the country usually abounds in such a variety.770
A somewhat similar migration of Butterflies was observed in Switzerland on the 8th or 10th of June, 1828. The facts are as follows: Madame de Meuron Wolff and her family, established during the summer in the district of Grandson, Canton de Vaud, perceived with surprise an immense flight of Butterflies traversing the garden with great rapidity. They were all of the species called Belle Dame by the French, and by the English the Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui, Stephens). They were all flying close together in the same direction, from south to north, and were so little afraid when any one approached, that they turned not to the right or to the left. The flight continued for two hours without interruption, and the column was about ten or fifteen feet broad. They did not stop to alight on flowers; but flew onward, low and equally. This fact is the more singular, when it is considered that the larvæ of the Vanessa cardui are not gregarious, but are solitary from the moment they are hatched; nor are the Butterflies themselves usually found together in numbers. Professor Bonelli, of Turin, however, observed a similar flight of the same species of Butterflies in the end of March preceding their appearance at Grandson, when it may be presumed they had just emerged from the pupa state. Their flight, as at Grandson, was from south to north, and their numbers were so immense, that at night the flowers were literally covered with them. As the spring advanced, their numbers diminished; but even in June a few still continued. A similar flight of Butterflies is recorded about the end of the last century by M. Loche, in the Memoirs of the Turin Academy. During the whole season, these Butterflies, as well as their larvæ, were very abundant, and more beautiful than usual.771
Pallas once saw such vast flights of the orange-tipped Butterfly, Pontia cardamines, in the vicinity of Winofka, that he at first mistook them for flakes of snow.772 At Barbados, some days previous to the hurricane in 1780, the trees and shrubs were entirely covered with a species of Butterfly of the most beautiful colors, so as to screen from the sight the branches, and even the trunks of the trees. In the afternoon before the gale came on, and when it was quite still, they all suddenly disappeared. The gale came on soon after.773 Darwin tells us that several times, when the “Beagle” had been some miles off the mouth of the Plata, and at other times when off the shores of Northern Patagonia, the air was filled with insects: that one evening, when the ship was about ten miles from the Bay of San Blas, vast numbers of Butterflies, in bands or flocks of countless myriads, extended as far as the eye could range. The seamen cried out “It was raining Butterflies,” and such in fact, continues Darwin, was the appearance. Several species were in this flock, but they were chiefly of a kind very similar to, but not identical with, the common English Colias edusa. Some moths and hymenopterous insects accompanied the Butterflies; and a fine beetle (Calosoma) flew on board.774 Captain Adams mentions an extraordinary flight of small Butterflies, with spotted wings, which took place at Annamaboo, on the Guinea coast, after a tornado. The wind veered to the northward, and blew fresh from the land, with thick mist, which brought off from the shore so many of these insects, that for one hour the atmosphere was so filled with them as to represent a snow-storm driving past the vessel at a rapid rate, which was lying at anchor about two miles from the shore.775
Mr. Charles J. Anderson encountered, in South-western Africa, for two consecutive days, such immense myriads of lemon-colored Butterflies that the sound caused by their wings was such as to resemble “the distant murmuring of waves on the sea-shore.” They always passed in the same direction as the wind blew, and, as numbers were constantly alighting on the flowers, their appearance at such times was not unlike “the falling of leaves before a gentle autumnal breeze.”776
In Bermuda, October 10, 1847, the Butterfly, Terias lisa of Boisduval, suddenly appeared in great abundance, hundreds being seen in every direction. Previous to that occasion, Mr. Hurdis, the observer of this flight, had never met with this Butterfly. In the course of a few days, they had all disappeared.777
In Ceylon, in the months of April and May, migrations of Butterflies (mostly the Callidryas hilariæ, C. alcmeone, and C. pyranthe, with straggling individuals of the genus Euplœa, E. coras, and E. prothoe) are quite frequent. Their passage is generally in a northeasterly direction. The flights of these delicate insects appear to the eye of a white or pale yellow hue, and apparently to extend miles in breadth, and of such prodigious length as to occupy hours, and even days, in their uninterrupted passage. A friend of Tennent, traveling from Kandy to Kornegalle, drove for nine miles through such a cloud of white Butterflies, which was passing across the road by which he went. Whence these immense numbers of Butterflies come no one knows, and whither going no one can tell. But the natives have a superstitious belief that their flight is ultimately directed to Adam’s Peak, and that their pilgrimage ends on reaching that sacred mountain.778
Moufet says: “Wert thou as strong as Milo or Hercules, and wert fenced or guarded about with an host of giants for force and valour, remember that such an army was put to the worst by an army of Butterflies flying in troops in the air, in the year 1104, and they hid the light of the sun like a cloud. Licosthenes relates, that on the third day of August, 1543, that no hearb was left by reason of their multitudes, and they had devoured all the sweet dew and natural moisture, and they had burned up the very grasse that was consumed with their dry dung.”779
The most beautiful as well as pleasing emblem among the Egyptians was exhibited under the character of Psyche—the Soul. This was originally no other than a Butterfly: but it afterwards was represented as a lovely female child with the beautiful wings of that insect. The Butterfly, after its first and second stages as an egg and larva, lies for a season in a manner dead; and is inclosed in a sort of coffin. In this state it remains a shorter or longer period; but at last bursting its bonds, it comes out with new life, and in the most beautiful attire. The Egyptians thought this a very proper picture of the soul of man, and of the immortality, to which it aspired. But they made it more particularly an emblem of Osiris; who having been confined in an oak or coffin, and in a state of death, at last quitted his prison, and enjoyed a renewal of life.780 This symbol passed over to the Greeks and Romans, who also considered the Butterfly as the symbol of Zephyr.781
Among the coats of arms of several of our most celebrated tribes of Indians, Baron Lahontan mentions one, that of the “Illinese,” which bore a beech-leaf with a Butterfly argent.782
The sight of a trio of Butterflies is considered an omen of death.783 An English superstition.
If a Butterfly enters a house, a death is sure to follow shortly in the family occupying it; if it enters through the window, the death will be that of an infant or very young person. As far as I know this superstition is peculiar to Maryland.
If a Butterfly alights upon your head, it foretells good news from a distance. This superstition obtains in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
The first Butterfly seen in the summer brings good luck to him who catches it. This notion prevails in New York.
In Western Pennsylvania, it is believed that if the chrysalides of Butterflies be found suspended mostly on the under sides of rails, limbs, etc., as it were to protect them from rain, that there will soon be much rain, or, as it is termed, a “rainy spell”; but, on the contrary, if they are found on twigs and slender branches, that the weather will be dry and clear.
Du Halde and Grosier tell us that the Butterflies of the mountain of Lo-few-shan, in the province of Quang-tong, China, are so much esteemed for their size and beauty, that they are sent to court, where they become a part of certain ornaments in the palaces. The wings of these Butterflies are very large, and their colors surprisingly diversified and lively.784 Dionysius Kao, a native of China, also remarks, in his Geographical Description of that Empire, that the Butterflies of Quang-tong are generally sent to the emperor, as they form a part of the furniture of the imperial cabinets.785
Osbeck says the Chinese put up insects in boxes made of coarse wood, without covering, and lined with paper, which they carry round to sell; each box bringing half a piastre. Of the Butterflies, which were the principal insects thus sold, he enumerates twenty-one species.786
The Chinese children make Butterflies of paper, with which “they play after night by sending them, like kites, into the air.”787
We learn from Captain Stedman, that even in the forests of Guiana, some people make Butterfly-catching their business, and obtain much money by it. They collect and arrange them in paper boxes, and send them off to the different cabinets of Europe.788
Butterflies are now extensively worn by French and American ladies on their head-dresses.
From the relations of Sir Anthony Shirley, quoted in Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy,789 we learn that the kings of Persia were wont to hawk after Butterflies with sparrows and stares, or starlings, trained for the purpose; and we are also told that M. de Luisnes (afterward Prime Minister of France), in the nonage of Louis XIII., gained much upon him by making hawks catch little birds, and by making some of those little birds again catch Butterflies.790
In the Zoological Journal, No. 13, it is recorded that at a meeting of the Linnæan Society, March 11, 1832, Mr. Stevens exhibited a remarkable freak of nature in a specimen of Vanessa urtica, which possessed five wings, the additional one being formed by a second, but smaller, hinder wing on one side.791
J. A. de Mandelsloe, who made a voyage to the East Indies in 1639, tells us that not far from the Fort of Ternate grows a certain shrub, called by the Indians Catopa, from which falls a leaf, which, by degrees, is supposed to be metamorphosed into a Butterfly.792
De Pauw tells us that, not long before his time, the French peasants entertained a kind of worship for the chrysalis of the caterpillar found on the great nettle (the pupa of Vanessa cardui?), because they fancied that it revealed evident traces of Divinity; and quotes M. Des Landes in saying that the curates had even ornamented the altars with these pupæ.793
The Butterfly (Ang. Sax. Buttor-fleoge, or Buter-flege) is so named from the common yellow species, or from its appearing in the butter season. Its German names are Schmetterling, from schmetten, cream; and Molkendieb, the Whey-thief. The association with milk in its three forms, in butter, cream, and whey, is remarkable.
The African Bushmen eat the caterpillars of Butterflies; and the Natives of New Holland eat the caterpillars of a species of Moth, and also a kind of Butterfly, which they call Bugong, which congregates in certain districts, at particular seasons, in countless myriads. On these occasions the native blacks assemble from far and near to collect them; and after removing the wings and down by stirring them on the ground, previously heated by a large fire, winnowing them, eat the bodies, or store them up for use, by pounding and smoking them. The bodies of these Butterflies abound in oil, and taste like nuts. When first eaten, they produce violent vomitings and other debilitating effects; but these go off after a few days, and the natives then thrive and fatten exceedingly on this diet, for which they have to contend with a black crow, which is also attracted by the Butterflies, and which they dispatch with their clubs and use also as food.
Another practice in Australia is to follow up the flight of the Butterflies, and to light fires at nightfall beneath the trees in which they have settled. The smoke brings the insects down, when their bodies are collected and pounded together into a sort of fleshy loaf.794
Bennet tells us the larva of a Lepidopterous insect (the Bugong?) that destroys the green-wattle (Acacia decurrens) is much sought after, and considered a delicacy, by the blacks of Australia. These people eat also the pink grubs found in the wattle-trees, either roasted or uncooked. Europeans, who have tasted of this dish, say it is not disagreeable.795
Swammerdam, treating of the metamorphoses of larvæ into pupæ and thence into perfect insects, makes the following curious comparison: “The worms, after the manner of the brides in Holland, shut themselves up for a time, as it were to prepare, and render themselves more amiable, when they are to meet the other sex in the field of Hymen.”796
Sphingidæ—Hawk-moths.
To the superstitious imaginations of the Europeans, the conspicuous markings on the back of a large evening moth, the Sphinx Atropos, represent the human skull, with the thigh-bones crossed beneath; hence is it called the Death’s-head Moth, the Death’s-head Phantom, the Wandering Death-bird, etc. Its cry,797 which closely resembles the noise caused by the creaking of cork, or the plaintive squeaking of a mouse, certainly more than enough to frighten the ignorant and superstitious, is considered the voice of anguish, the moaning of a child, the signal of grief; and it is regarded “not as the creation of a benevolent being, but as the device of evil spirits”—spirits, enemies to man, conceived and fabricated in the dark; and the very shining of its eyes is supposed to represent the fiery element whence it is thought to have proceeded. Flying into their apartments in the evening, it at times extinguishes the light, foretelling war, pestilence, famine, and death to man. The sudden appearance of these insects, we are informed by Latrielle, during a season while the people were suffering from an epidemic disease, tended much to confirm the notions of the superstitious in that district, and the disease was attributed by them entirely to their visitation.798 Jaeger says, at a very recent day, that this large Moth first attracted his “attention during the prevalence of a severe and fatal epidemic, and of course nothing more was necessary than its appearance at such a time to induce an ignorant people to believe it the veritable prophet and forerunner of death. A curate in Bretagne, France,” continues this author, “made a most horrible and fear-exciting description of this animal, describing the very loud and dreadful sound which it emitted as a sort of lamentation for the awful calamity which was coming on the earth.”799 Reaumur informs us that all the members of a female convent in France were thrown into the greatest consternation at the appearance of one of these insects, which happened to fly in during the evening at one of the windows of the dormitory.800
In the Isle of France, the natives believe that the dust (scales) cast from the wings of the Death’s-head Moth, in flying through an apartment, is productive of blindness to the visual organs on which it falls.801
There is a quaint superstition in England that the Death’s-head Moth has been very common in Whitehall ever since the martyrdom of Charles I.802
Illustrative of the tough texture of the skin with which many soft larvæ are provided for protection, the following may be instanced: Bonnet squeezed under water the caterpillar of the privet Hawk-moth, Sphinx ligustris, till it was as flat and empty as the finger of a glove, yet within an hour it became plump and lively as if nothing had happened.803
The name Sphinx is applied to this genus of insects from a fancied resemblance between the attitude assumed by the larvæ of several of the larger species, when disturbed, and that of the Egyptian Sphinx.
Bombicidæ—Silk-worm Moths.
The notices of the cultivation of the mulberry and the rearing of Silk-worms, found in Chinese works, have been industriously collected and published by M. Julien, by order of the French government. From his work it appears that credible notices of the culture of the tree and the manufacture of silk are found as far back as B.C. 780; and in referring its invention to the Empress Siling, or Yuenfi, wife of the Emperor Hwangti, B.C. 2602 (Du Halde says 2698), the Chinese have shown their belief of its still higher antiquity. The Shi King contains this distich:
Du Halde says this invention raised the Empress to the rank of a divinity, under the title of Spirit of the Silk-worm, and of the Mulberry-tree.804
The Book of Rites contains a notice of the festival held in honor of this art, which corresponds to that of plowing by the emperor. “In the last month of spring, the young empress purified herself and offered sacrifice to the goddess of Silk-worms. She went into the eastern fields and collected mulberry-leaves. She forbade noble dames and the ladies of statesmen adorning themselves, and excused her attendants from their sewing and embroidery, in order that they might give all their care to the rearing of Silk-worms.”805
The manufacture of silk has been known in India from time immemorial, it being mentioned in the oldest Sanscrit books.806 It is the opinion of modern writers, however, that the culture of the Silk-worm passed from China into India, thence through Persia, and then, after the lapse of several centuries, into Europe. But long before this, wrought silk had been introduced into Greece from Persia. This was effected by the army of Alexander the Great, about the year 323 before Christ.
The Greeks fabled silk to have first been woven in the Island of Cos by Pamphila, the daughter of Plateos.807 Of its true origin they were, in a great measure, ignorant, but seem to have been positive that it was the work of an insect. Pausanias thus describes the animal and its culture: “But the thread, from which the Ceres (an Ethiopian race) make garments, is not produced from a tree, but is procured by the following method: A worm is found in their country which the Greeks call Seer, but the Ceres themselves, by a different name. This worm is twice as large as a beetle, and, in other respects, resembles spiders which weave under trees. It has, likewise, eight feet as well as the spider. The Ceres rear these insects in houses adapted for this purpose both to summer and winter. What these insects produce is a slender thread, which is rolled round their feet. They feed them for four years on oatmeal; and on the fifth (for they do not live beyond five years) they give them a green reed to feed on: for this is the sweetest of all food to this insect. It feeds, therefore, on this till it bursts through fullness, and dies: after which, they draw from its bowels a great quantity of thread.”808
Aristotle seems to have had a much clearer idea of the origin of silk, for he says it was unwound from the pupa (he does not expressly say the pupa, but this we must suppose) of a large horned caterpillar.809 The larva he means could not, however, be the common Silk-worm, since it is rather small and without horns.
Pliny, who, most probably, obtained the most of his ideas from Pausanias and Aristotle, was of opinion that silk was the produce of a worm which built clay-nests and collected wax. At first these worms, he says, assume the appearance of small butterflies with naked bodies, but soon after, being unable to endure the cold, they throw out bristly hairs, which assume quite a thick coat against the winter, by rubbing off the down that covers the leaves, by the aid of the roughness of their feet. This they compress into balls by carding it with their claws, and then draw it out and hang it between the branches of the trees, making it fine by combing it out, as it were: last of all, they take and roll it round their body, thus forming a nest in which they are enveloped. It is in this state that they are taken; after which they are placed in earthen vessels in a warm place, and fed upon bran. A peculiar sort of down soon shoots forth upon the body, on being clothed with which they are sent to work upon another task.810
The first kinds of silk dresses worn by the Roman ladies were from the Island of Cos, and, as Pliny says, were known by the name of Coæ vestes.811 These dresses, of which Pliny says in such high praise, “that while they cover a woman, they at the same time reveal her charms,” were indeed so fine as to be transparent, and were sometimes dyed purple, and enriched with stripes of gold. They had their name from the early reputation which Cos acquired by its manufacture of silk. But silk was a very scarce article among the Romans for many ages, and so highly prized as to be valued at its weight in gold. Vospicius informs us that the Emperor Aurelian, who died A.D. 125, refused his empress a robe of silk, which she earnestly solicited, merely on account of its dearness. Galen, who lived about A.D. 173, speaks of the rarity of silk, being nowhere then but at Rome, and there only among the rich. Heliogabalus is said to have been the first Roman that wore a garment entirely of silk.
We learn from Tacitus, that early in the reign of Tiberius, about A.D. 17, the Senate enacted “that men should not defile themselves by wearing garments of silk.”812 Pliny says, however, that in his time men had become so degenerate as to not even feel ashamed to wear garments of this material.813
The mode of producing and manufacturing silk was not known to Europe until long after the Christian era, being first learned about the year 555 by two Persian monks, who, under the encouragement of the Emperor Justinian, procured in India the eggs of the Silk-worm Moth, with which, concealing them in hollow canes, they hastened to Constantinople. They also brought with them instructions for hatching the eggs, rearing and feeding the worms, and drawing, spinning, and working the silk.814
From Constantinople, the culture of the Silk-worm spread over Greece, so that in less than five centuries that portion of this country, hitherto called the Peloponnesus, changed its denomination into that of Morea, from the immense plantations of the Morus alba, or white mulberry.815 Large manufactories were set up at Athens, Thebes, and Corinth. The Venetians, soon after this, commencing a commerce with the Grecians, supplied all the western parts of Europe with silks for many centuries. Several kinds of modern silk manufactures, such as damasks, velvets, satins, etc., were as yet unknown.
About the year 1130, Roger II., King of Sicily, having conquered the Peloponnesus, transported the Silk-worms and such as cultivated them to Palermo and to Calabria. Such was the success of the speculation in Calabria, that it is doubtful whether, even at the present moment, it does not produce more silk than the whole of the rest of Italy.816
By degrees the rest of Italy, as well as Spain, learned from the Sicilians and Calabrians the management of Silk-worms and the working of silk; and at length, during the wars of Charles VIII., in 1499, the French acquired it, by right of neighborhood, and soon large plantations of the mulberry were raised in Provence. Henry I. is reported to have been the first French king who wore silk stockings. The invention, however, originally came from Spain, whence silk stockings were brought over to England to Henry VIII. and Edward VI.
It is stated, that at the celebration of the marriage between Margaret, daughter of Henry III., and Alexander III. of Scotland, in the year 1251, a most extravagant display of magnificence was made by one thousand English knights appearing in suits of silk. It appears also by the 33d of Henry VI., cap. 5, that there was a company of silk-women in England as early as the year 1455; but these were probably employed rather in embroidering and making small haberdasheries, than in the broad manufacture, which was not introduced till the year 1620.
Sir Thomas Gresham, in a letter to Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth’s great minister, dated Antwerp, April 30th, 1560, says: “I have written into Spain for silk hose both for you and my lady, your wife, to whom, it may please you, I may be remembered.” These silk hose, of a black color, were accordingly soon after sent by Gresham to Cecil.817
Hose were, in England, up to the time of Henry VIII., made out of ordinary cloth: the King’s own were formed of yard-wide taffata. It was only by chance that he might obtain a pair of silk hose from Spain. His son, Edward VI., received as a present from Sir Thomas Gresham—Stow speaks of it as a great present—“a pair of long Spanish silk stockings.” For some years longer, silk stockings continued to be a great rarity. “In the second year of Queen Elizabeth,” says Stow, “her silk-woman, Mistress Montague, presented her Majesty with a pair of black knit-silk stockings for a New-Year’s gift; the which, after a few days’ wearing, pleased her Highness so well, that she sent for Mistress Montague, and asked her where she had them, and if she could help her to any more; who answered, saying, ‘I made them very carefully, of purpose only for your Majesty, and, seeing these please you so well, I will presently set more in hand.’ ‘Do so,’ quoth the Queen, ‘for indeed I like silk stockings so well, because they are pleasant, fine, and delicate, that henceforth I will wear no more cloth stockings.’ And from that time to her death the Queen never wore cloth hose, but only silk stockings.”818
James I., while King of Scotland, is said to have once written to the Earl of Mar, one of his friends, to borrow a pair of silk stockings, in order to appear with becoming dignity before the English Ambassador; concluding his letter with these words: “For ye would not, sure, that your King should appear like a scrub before strangers.” This shows the great rarity of silk articles at that period in Scotland.
In 1629, the manufacture of silk was become so considerable in London, that the silk throwsters of the city and parts adjacent were incorporated; and in 1661, this company employed above forty thousand persons. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, contributed in a great degree to promote the manufacture of this article; and the invention of the silk-throwing machine at Derby, in 1719, added so much to the reputation of English manufactures, that even in Italy, according to Keysler, the English silks bore a higher price than the Italian.819
Rev. Stephen Olin tells us that the Mohammedans of Arabia will not allow strangers to look into their cocooneries, on account of their superstitious fear of the evil eye, of the influence of which the Silk-worms are thought to be peculiarly susceptible.820
The silk of the nests of the social caterpillar of the Bombyx Madrona, was an object of commerce in Mexico in the time of Montecusuma; and the ancient Mexicans pasted together the interior layers, which may be written upon without preparation, to form a white, glossy pasteboard. Handkerchiefs are still manufactured of it in the Intendency of Oaxaca.821
A complete nest of these Silk-worms, called in Brazil sustillo, was sent by the Academy of Sciences and Natural History to the King of Spain. The naturalist, Don Antonio Pineda, sent also a piece of this natural silk paper, measuring a yard and a half, of an elliptical shape, which, however, is peculiar to them all.822
The Chinese fix on rings with threads the females of two species of wild Bombyx, whose caterpillars produce silk, and place these insects on a tree, or on some body situated in the open air, to allow the males, guided by their scent, to visit them.823
“The manner of the Chinese is,” we read in Purchas’s Pilgrims, “in the Spring time to revive the Silke-worms (that lye dead all the Winter) by laying them in the warme sunne, and (to hasten their quickening, that they may sooner goe to worke) to put them into bagges, and so hang them under their childrens armes.”824
In China, the pupæ of the Silk-worms after the silk is wound off, and the larvæ of a species of Sphinx-moth, furnish articles for the table, and are considered delicacies.825 The natives of Madagascar, who eat all kinds of insects, consider also Silk-worms a great luxury.826
Aldrovandus states that the German soldiers sometimes fry and eat Silk-worms.827
Dr. James says: “Silk-worms dried, and reduced to a powder, are, by some, applied to the crown of the head for removing vertigos and convulsions. The silk, and case or coat, are of a due temperament between heat and cold, and corroborate and recruit the vital, natural, and animal spirits.”828 The cocoons are also the basis of Goddard’s Drops, and enter into several other compositions, such as the Confectio de Hyacintho, when made in the best manner.829
With respect to the coloring of silk, we find in “Tseën Tse Wan,” or thousand character classic, a work that has been a school-book in China for the last 1200 years, that an ancient sage by the name of Mih, seeing the white silk colored, wept on account of its original purity being destroyed.830
Some of the eggs of a wild species of Silk-worm being sent overland from China to Paris, proved a source of considerable anxiety to different parties who received them during the transit, the instructions on the box, instead of simply stating that it contained the eggs of the wild Silk-worm Moth, was couched in the following manner by the French savant who forwarded them: “Must be kept far from the engines; this box contains savage worms.”831
About twenty-five years ago, during a mania for rearing Silk-worms, to meet the demand for the eggs of these insects, fish-spawn was distributed throughout the country. The humbug was quite as successful as it was curious.
It has been said that the search after the “Golden Fleece” may be ascribed to the desire to obtain silk.832
As a protection against rifle-balls, the Chinese, who were engaged in the rebellion of 1853, state that they wore dresses thickly padded with floss silk; they said that while the ball had a twist in it, revolving in its course, it caught up the silk and fastened itself in the garment. One man declared that he took out six so caught, in one day, after a severe fight. They said the dress was of more use within a hundred yards than at long range, when the ball had lost its revolving motion.833
Vaucanson, the inventor of the famous “automaton duck,” to revenge himself upon the silk-weavers of Lyons, who had stoned him because he attempted to simplify the ordinary loom, is said to have invented a loom on which a donkey worked silken cloth.834
The following curious Welsh epigram on the Silk-worm is composed entirely of vowels, and can be recited without closing or moving lips or teeth:
Arctiidæ—Wooly-bear Moths.
In 1783, the larvæ of the Moth, Arctia chrysorrhœa, were so destructive in the neighborhood of London that subscriptions were opened to employ the poor in cutting off and collecting the webs; and it is asserted that not less than eighty bushels were collected and burnt in one day in the parish of Clapham. And even in some places prayers were offered up in the churches to avert the calamities of which they were supposed by the ignorant to be the forerunner.836
If a caterpillar spins its cocoon in a house, it foretells its desolation by death; if in your clothes, it warns you you will wear a shroud before the year is out. This superstition obtains in the Middle States, Virginia, and Maryland.
If Moths, flying in a candle, put it out, it forebodes a calamity amounting to almost death. This superstition is pretty general.
Why Moths fly in a candle: Kempfer tells us, there is found in Japan an insect, which, by reason of its incomparable beauty, is kept by the Japanese ladies among the curiosities of their toilets. He calls it a Night-fly, and describes it as being “about a finger long, slender, round-bodied, with four wings, two of which are transparent and hid under a pair of others, which are shining as it were polished, and most curiously adorned with blue and golden lines and spots.” The following little fable, which accounts so beautifully for the flying of Moths in a candle, owes its origin to the unparalleled beauty of this insect, and is well worthy of being preserved: The Japanese say that all other Night-flies (Moths, etc.) fall in love with this particular one, who, to get rid of their importunities, maliciously bids them, under the pretense of trying their constancy, to go and bring to her fire. And the blind lovers, scrupling not to obey her command, fly to the nearest fire or candle, in which they never fail to burn themselves to death.837
The following verses, embodying the above fable (except in several minor particulars) are from the pen of Mrs. A. L. Ruter Dufour:
Moufet says: “Our North, as well as our West countrymen, call it (the Moth, Phalaina) Saule, i.e. Psychen, Animam, the soul; because some silly people in old time did fancy that the souls of the dead did fly about in the night seeking light.”838 “Pliny commends a goat’s liver to drive them away, yet he shews not the means to use it.”839
One of the most highly prized curiosities in the collection of Horace Walpole, was the silver bell with which the popes used to curse the caterpillars. This bell was the work of Benvenuto Cellini, one of the most extraordinary men of his extraordinary age, and the relievos on it representing caterpillars, butterflies, and other insects, are said to have been wonderfully executed.840
In Purchas’s Pilgrims, we read of worms being sprinkled with holy water to kill them.841
Apuleius says, that if you take the caterpillars from another garden, and boil them in water with anethum, and let them cool, and besprinkle the herbs, you will destroy the existing caterpillars.842
Pliny says, that “if a woman having a catamenia strips herself naked, and walks round a field of wheat, the caterpillars, worms, beetles, and other vermin, will fall off the ears of the grain!” This important discovery, according to Metrodurus of Scepsos, was first made in Cappadocia; where, in consequence of such multitudes of “Cantharides” being found to breed there, it was the practice for women to walk through the middle of the fields with their garments tucked up above the thighs.843 Columella844 has described this practice in verse, and Ælian845 also mentions it. Pliny says further that in other places, again, it is the usage of women to go barefoot, with the hair disheveled and the girdle loose: due precaution, however, he seriously observes, must be taken that this is not done at sunrise, for if so the crop will wither and dry up.846 Apuleius,847 Columella,848 and Palladius849 relate the same story. Constantinus, likewise, whose verses, as translated in Moufet’s Theater of Insects, are as follows:
This remarkable superstitious remedy for destroying caterpillars was frequently practiced by the Indians of America. Schoolcraft, treating of the peculiar superstitions connected with the menstrual lodge of these people, says:
“This superstition does not alone exert a malign influence, or spell, on the human species. Its ominous power, or charm, is equally effective on the animate creation, at least on those species which are known to depredate on their little fields and gardens. To cast a protective spell around these, and secure the fields against vermin, insects, the sciurus, and other species, as well as to protect the crops against blight, the mother of the family chooses a suitable hour at night, when the children are at rest and the sky is overcast, and having completely divested herself of her garments, trails her machecota behind her, and performs the circuit of the little field.”851
The fat of bears, says Topsel, “some use superstitiously beaten with oil, wherewith they anoynt their grape-sickles when they go to vintage, perswading themselves that if nobody know thereof, their tender vine-branches shall never be consumed by caterpillars. Others attribute this to the vertue of bears’ blood.”852
Nicander used “a caterpillar to procure sleep: for so he writes; and Hieremias Martius thus translates him:
Of a caterpillar that feeds upon cabbage leaves, the Eruca officinalis of Schroder, Dr. James says: “Bruised, or a powder of them, raise a blister like cantharides, and take off the skin. Moufet says, they will cause the teeth to fall out of their sockets, and Hippocrates writes, that they are good for a Quinsey.”854
Psychidæ—Wood-carrying Moth, etc.
The larvæ of the Wood-carrying Moth (of the genus Oiketicus, or Eumeta, Wlk.) of Ceylon, surround themselves with cases made of stems of leaves, and thorns or pieces of twigs bound together by threads, till the whole resembles a miniature Roman fasces; in fact, an African species of these insects has obtained the name of “Lictor.” The Germans have denominated the group Sackträger, and the Singhalese call them Darra-kattea or “billets of fire-wood,” and regard the inmates, Tennent says, as human beings, who, as a punishment for stealing wood in some former state of existence, have been condemned to undergo a metempsychosis under the form of these insects.855
Noctuidæ—Antler-moth, Cut-worm, etc.
The Antler-moth, Noctua graminis, Linn., has been particularly observed in Sweden, Norway, Northern Germany, and even in Greenland, where it does great mischief to grass-plots and meadows. It is recorded to have done very great injury in the eastern mountains of Georgenthal, as well as at Töplitz in Bohemia, where larvæ were in such large numbers that in four days and a half 200 men found 23 bushels of them, or 4,500,000 in the 60 bushels of mould which they examined. In Germany it seems to be confined to high and dry districts, and it never appears there in wet meadows, but its devastations are sometimes most extensive, as happened in the Hartz territory in 1816 and ’17, when whole hills that in the evening were clad in the finest green, were brown and bare the following morning; and such vast numbers of the caterpillars were there that the ruts of the roads leading to the hills were full of them, and the roads being covered with them were even rendered slippery and dirty by their being crushed in some places.856
The notorious astrologer, William Lilly, alluding to the comet which appeared in 1677, says: “All comets signify wars, terrors, and strange events in the world;” and gives the following curious explanation of the prophetic nature of these bodies: “The spirits, well knowing what accidents shall come to pass, do form a star or comet, and give it what figure or shape they please, and cause its motion through the air, that people might behold it, and thence draw a signification of its events.” Further, a comet appearing in the Taurus portends “mortality to the greater part of cattle, as horses, oxen, cows, etc.,” and also “prodigious shipwrecks, damage in fisheries, monstrous floods, and destruction of fruit by caterpillars and other vermin.”857
Josselyn, in the account of his voyage to New England, printed in London in 1674, has the following relation of an insect which is doubtless a species of Agrotis, probably the Agrotis telifera: “There is also (in New England) a dark dunnish Worm or Bug of the bigness of an Oaten-straw, and an inch long, that in the Spring lye at the Root of Corn and Garden plants all day, and in the night creep out and devour them; these in some years destroy abundance of Indian Corn and Garden plants, and they have but one way to be rid of them, which the English have learned of the Indians; And because it is somewhat strange, I shall tell you how it is, they go out into a field or garden with a Birchen-dish, and spudling the earth about the roots, for they lye not deep, they gather their dish full which may contain a quart or three pints, then they carrie the dish to the Sea-side when it is ebbing water and set it a swimming, the water carrieth the dish into the Sea, and within a day or two you go into your field you may look your eyes out sooner than find any of them.”858
The Army-worm (larva of Leucania unipunctata of Haworth), during this our great rebellion, is thought, by many persons in Western Pennsylvania, to prognosticate the success or defeat of our armies by the direction it travels. If toward the North, the South will be victorious; and if toward the South, the North will conquer. An old gentleman, who believes that a frog’s foot drawn in chalk above the door will keep away witches, tells me this worm invariably travels southward.
This larva was noticed but a few years before the war began, and then appearing, as it were, in armies, it was called the Army-worm. The superstitious omen from it has followed not preceded the name.
Lindenbrog, in his Codex Legum Antiquarum, cum Glossario, fol. Francof. 1613, mentions the following superstition: “The peasants, in many places in Germany, at the feast of St. John, bind a rope around a stake drawn from a hedge, and drive it hither and thither, till it catches fire. This they carefully feed with stubble and dry wood heaped together, and they spread the collected ashes over their potherbs, confiding in vain superstition, that by this means they can drive away Canker-worms. They therefore call this Nodfeur, q. necessary fire.”
These fires were condemned as sacrilegious, not as if it had been thought that there was anything unlawful in kindling a fire in this manner, but because it was kindled with a superstitious design. They are, however, Du Cange says, still kindled in France, on the eve of St. John’s day.859
Geometridæ—Span-worms.
The Measuring-worm, crawling on your clothes, is thought to foretell a new suit; on your hands, a pair of gloves, etc.
Tineidæ—Clothes’-moth, Bee-moth, etc.
In Newton’s Journal of the Arts for December, 1827, there is the following mention of a new kind of cloth fabricated by insects: The larvæ of the Moth, Tinea punctata, or T. padilla, have been directed by M. Habenstreet, of Munich, so as to work on a paper model suspended from a ceiling of a room. To this model he can give any form and dimensions, and he has thus been enabled to obtain square shawls, an air balloon four feet high, and a woman’s complete robe, with the sleeves, but without seams. One or two larvæ can weave a square inch of cloth. A great number are, of course, employed, and their motions are interdicted from the parts of the model not to be covered, by oiling them. The cloth exceeds in fineness the lightest gauze, and has been worn as a robe over her court dress by the Queen of Bavaria.860
Authors are of opinion that the ancients possessed some secret for preserving garments from the Moth, Tinia tapetzella. We are told the robes of Servius Tullius were found in perfect preservation at the death of Sejanus, an interval of more than five hundred years. Pliny gives as a precaution “to lay garments on a coffin;” others recommend “cantharides hung up in a house, or wrapping them in a lion’s skin”—“the poor little insects,” says Reaumur, “being probably placed in bodily fear of this terrible animal.”861
Moufet says: “They that sell woollen clothes use to wrap up the skin of a bird called the king’s-fisher among them, or else hang one in the shop, as a thing by a secret antipathy that Moths cannot endure.”862
Among the various contrivances resorted to as a safeguard against the Bee-moth, Galleria cereana, Fabricius, perhaps the most ingenious is that, mentioned by Langstroth, of “governing the entrances of all the hives by a long lever-like hen-roost, so that they may be regularly closed by the crowing and cackling tribe when they go to bed at night, and opened again when they fly from their perch to greet the merry morn.”863
An intelligent man informed Langstroth that he paid ten dollars to a “Bee-quack” professing to have an infallible secret for protecting Bees against the Moth; and, after the quack had departed with his money, learned that the secret consisted in “always keeping strong stocks.”864