  It may be new to many of our readers, who are familiar with the Elegy in a Country Church-yard, to be told that its author was at the pains to turn the characteristics of the LinnÆan orders of insects into Latin hexameters, the manuscript of which is still preserved in his interleaved copy of the “Systema NaturÆ.”1240 It is related by Boerhaave, in his Life of Swammerdam, that when the Grand Duke of Tuscany was visiting with Mr. Thevenot the curiosities of Holland, in 1668, he found nothing more worthy of his admiration than the great naturalist’s account of the structure of caterpillars,—for Swammerdam, by the skillful management of instruments of wonderful delicacy and fineness, showed the duke in what manner the future butterfly, with all its parts, lies neatly folded up in the caterpillar, like a rose in the unexpanded bud. He was, indeed, so struck with this and other wonders of the insect world, disclosed to him by the great naturalist, that he made him the offer of twelve thousand florins to induce him to reside at his court; but Swammerdam, from feelings of independence, modestly declined to accept it, preferring to continue his delightful studies at home.1241 There is an epitaph in the church of St. Hilary at Poictiers, beginning “Vermibus hic ponor,” which the people interpreted to mean that a Saint was buried there who undertook to cure children of the worms. Women, accordingly used to scrape the tomb and administer the powder; but the clergy, to prevent this absurdity (for Luther had arisen), erected a barrier to keep them off. They soon began, however, to carry away for the same purpose pieces of the wooden bars.1242 A diseased woman at Patton, drinking of the water in which the bones of St. Milburge were washed, there came from her stomach “a filthie worme, ugly and horrible to behold, having six feete, two hornes on his head, and two on his tayle.” Brother Porter, in his Flowers of the Saints, tells this, and adds that the “worme was shutt up in a hollow piece of wood, and reserved afterward in the monasterie as a trophy and monument of S. Milburg, untill, by the lascivious furie of him that destroyed all goodness in England, that with other religious houses and monasteries, went to ruin.” Hence the “filthie worme” was lost, and we have nothing now instead but the Reformation.1243 Capt. Clarke, in his passage from Dublin to Chester, on the 2d of September, 1733, met with a cloud “of flying insects of various sorts,” which stuck about the rigging of the vessel in a surprising manner.1244 De Geer, chamberlain to the King of Sweden, writes (iv. 63) that in January, 1749, at Leufsta, in Sweden, and in three or four neighboring parishes, the snow was covered with living worms and insects of various kinds. The people assured him they fell with the snow, and he was shown several that had dropped on people’s hats. He caused the snow to be removed from places where these worms had been seen, and found several which seemed to be on the surface of the snow which had fallen before, and were covered by the succeeding. It was impossible that they could have come there from under the ground, which was then frozen more than three feet deep, and absolutely impervious to such insects. In 1750, he again discovered vast quantities of insects on the snow, which covered a large frozen lake some leagues from Stockholm. Preceding and accompanying both these falls of insects were violent storms that had torn up trees by the roots, and carried away to a great distance the surrounding earth, and at the same time the insects which had taken up their winter quarters in it.1245 These insects were chiefly Brachyptera L., Aphodii, Spiders, caterpillars, and particularly the larvÆ of the Telephorus fuscus.1246 Another shower of insects is recorded to have fallen In the Muses Threnodie, p. 213, we read that “many are the instances, even to this day, of charms practised among the vulgar, especially among the Highlands, attended with forms of prayer. In the Miscellaneous MS., written by Baillie Dundee, among several medicinal receipts I find an exorcism against all kinds of worms in the body, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to be repeated three mornings, as a certain remedy.”1249 The Guahibo, Humboldt says, that “eats everything that exists above, and everything under ground,” eats insects, and particularly scolopendras and worms.1250 The same traveler also says he has seen the Indian children drag out of the earth centipedes eighteen inches long, and more than half an inch broad, and devour them.1251 “The seventeene of March, 1586,” says John Stow in his Annales of England, “a strange thing happened, the like whereof before hath not beene heard of in our time. Master Dorington, of Spaldwicke, in the countie of Huntington, esquier, one of his maiesties gentlemen Pensioners, had a horse which died sodainly, and, being ripped to see the cause of his death, there was found in the hole of the hart of the same horse a strange worme, which lay on a round heape in a kall or skin of the likeness of a toade, which, being taken out and spread abroad, was in forme and fashion not easie to be described, the length of which worme divided into many greines to the number of fiftie (spread from the bodie like the branches of a tree), was from the snowte to the ende of the longest greine, seventeene inches, having four issues in the greines, from the which dropped foorth a red water; the body in bignes round about was three inches and a halfe, the colour whereof was very like a makerel. This monstrous worme, found in manner aforesaid, crauling to have got away, was stabbed in with a dagger and died, which, after being dried, was shewed to many honorable persons of the realme.”1252 Dr. Sparrman, in his journey to Paarl, an inland town at the Cape of Good Hope, having filled his insect-box with fine specimens, was obliged to put a “whole regiment of flies and other insects” round the brim of his hat. Having entered the house of a rich old widow troubled with the gout, for food, he was warned by his servant that if she should happen to see the insects he would certainly be turned out of doors for a conjuror (hexmeester). Accordingly he was very careful to keep his hat always turned away from her, but all would not do—the old lady discovered the “little beasts,” and to her greater astonishment that they were run through their bodies with pins. An immediate explanation was demanded; and had the doctor not been just then lamenting with the widow for her deceased husband, and giving dissertations on the dropsy and cough that carried off the poor man, the explanation he gave would hardly have been sufficient to quell the rage of this superstitious boor at the thought of there being a sorcerer in her house.1253 In several parts of Europe quite a trade is carried on in the way of buying and selling rare insects, chiefly the rare Alpine butterflies and moths. The instant the entomologist steps from his carriage, in the celebrated valley of Chamouni, with net in hand, whence he is known to be a papillionist, he is surrounded by half a dozen Savoyard boys, from the age of fifteen down to eight, each with a large collecting-box full of insects in his hands for sale, and with the scientist bargains for the insects that are found only on the mountains, and which these hardy chaps alone can obtain. There are again insect dealers on a larger scale, who live there, and have many of these boys in their employ; one of which wholesale merchants, Michel Bossonney, at Martigni in the Vallais, in the year 1829, sold 7000 insects, mostly of rare and beautiful species. Another dealer, on a perhaps still larger scale, is M. Provost Duval, of Geneva, a highly respectable entomologist. In 1830, he could supply upwards of 600 species of Lepidoptera, and as many Coleoptera, of the Swiss Alps, the south of France, and Germany, at prices varying from one to fifteen francs each, according to their rarity. The advantage of this new traffic, both to the individuals engaged in it and to science, is great. Now the Sphinx Navarette, under the head of “Insects and Vermin,” speaks of an animal which the Chinese call Jen Ting, or Wall-dragon, because it runs up and down walls. It is also, says this traveler, called the Guard of the Palace, and this for the following reason: The emperors were accustomed to make an ointment of this insect, and some other ingredients, with which they anointed their concubines’ wrists, as the mark of it continued as long as they had not to do with man; but as soon as they did so, it immediately vanished, by which their honesty or falsehood was discovered. Hence it came that this insect was called the Guard of the Court, or, of the court ladies. Navarette laments that all men have not a knowledge of this wonderful ointment.1255 Navarette tells us he once caught (in China?) a small insect that was injurious to poultry—“a very deformed insect, and of a strange shape”—when, as soon as it was known, several women ran to him to beg its tail. He gave it to them, and they told him it was of excellent use when dried, and made into powder, “being a prodigious help to women in labor, to forward their delivery, if they drank it in a little wine.”1256 The Irish have a large beetle of which strange tales are believed; they term it the Coffin-cutter, and deem it in some way connected with the grave and purgatory.1257 Turpin, in his History of Siam, says: “There is a very singular animal in Siam … bred in the dung of elephants. It is entirely black, its wings are strong, and its head extremely curious: it is furnished on the top with several points, in the form of a trunk, and a small horn in the middle: it has four large feet, which raise it more than an inch from the ground: its back seems to be one very hard entire shell. It flies to the very top of the cocoa-trees, of which it eats the heart, and often kills them, if a remedy is not applied. Children play with them, and make them fight.”1258 General Count DÉjeau, Aid-de-camp to Napoleon Bonaparte, was so anxious, says Jaeger, in his Life of North American Insects, to increase the number of specimens in his entomological cabinet, that he even availed himself of his military campaigns for this purpose, and was continually occupied in collecting insects and fastening them with pins on the outside of his hat, which was always covered with them. The Emperor, as well as the whole army, were accustomed to see General DÉjeau’s head thus singularly ornamented, even when in battle. But the departed spirits of those murdered insects once had their revenge on him; for, in the battle of Wagram, in 1809, and while he was at the side of Napoleon, a shot from the enemy struck DÉjeau’s head, and precipitated him senseless from his horse. Soon, however, recovering from the shock, and being asked by the Emperor if he was still alive, he answered, “I am not dead; but, alas! my insects are all gone!” for his hat was literally torn to pieces.1259 Professor Jaeger tells also the following anecdote of another passionate naturalist: The celebrated Prince Paul of WÜrtemberg, whom Mr. Jaeger met in 1829 at Port-au-Prince, being one day at the latter’s house, shed tears of envy when he showed him the gigantic beetle ActÆon, which, only a short time before, had been presented to him by the Haytien Admiral Banajotti, he having found it at the foot of a cocoa-nut tree on his plantation.1260 While traveling in Poland, Professor Jaeger visited the highly accomplished Countess Ragowska, at her country residence, when she exhibited her fine, scientifically-arranged In R. Brookes’ “Natural History of Insects, with their properties and uses in medicine,” we find the following statement: “There have been the solid shells of a sort of Beetle brought to England, that were found on the eastern coast of Africa, over against part of the Island of Madagascar, which the natives hang to their necks, and make use of them as whistles to call their cattle together.”1262 What this “sort of Beetle” is I have not been able yet to determine. Mr. Fitch W. Taylor, chaplain to the squadron commanded by Commodore Geo. C. Read, gives a translation of several Siamese books, and among others the Siamese Dream-book. It was translated by Mrs. Davenport, and the subject is thus introduced: “In former times a great prophet and magician, who had much wisdom and could foretell all future events, gave the following interpretation of signs and dreams. Whosoever sees signs and visions, if he wishes to know whether they forebode good or evil, whether happiness or misery, if he dream of any animals, insects, birds, or fishes, and wishes to know the interpretation, let him examine this book.” Of these signs and dreams I make extract of those which refer to insects, as follows: “If a person be alone, and an insect or reptile fall before the face, but the individual see it only without touching it, it denotes that some heavenly being will bestow great blessings on him. If it fall to the right side, it denotes that all his friends, wherever scattered abroad, shall again meet him in peace. If it fall behind the person, it denotes that he shall be slandered and maliciously talked of by his friends “If an animal, insect, bird, or reptile, cross the path of any one as he walks along, the animal coming from the right, let him not proceed—some calamity will surely happen to him in the way. If the animal come from the left, let him proceed—good fortune shall surely happen to him. If the animal proceed before him in the same road in which he intends to travel, it denotes good fortune.… “I now beg to interpret the signs of the night. If at midnight an individual hears the noises of animals in the house where he resides, I will show him whether they indicate good or evil. If any insect cry ‘click, click, click,’ he will possess real treasures while he abides there. If it cry ‘kek, kek,’ it is an evil omen both to that and the neighboring houses. If it cry ‘chit, chit,’ it denotes that he shall always feed upon the most sumptuous provisions. If it cry ‘keat, keat,’ in a loud, shrill voice, it denotes that his residence there shall be attended with evil. “I now beg to interpret with regard to the Spider. If a Spider on the ceiling utter a low, tremulous moan, it denotes that the individual who hears the noise shall either change his residence or that his goods shall be stolen. If it utter the same voice on the outside of the house, and afterward Thevenot, in his Travels into the Levant, relates the following: “But I cannot tell what to say of a Moorish Woman who lives in a corner close by the quarter of France, and pulls worms out of Children’s Ears. When a Child does nothing but cry, and that they know it is ill, they carry it to that Woman, who, laying the Child on its side upon her knee, scratches the ear of it, and then Worms, like those which breed in musty weevily Flower, seem to fall out of the Child’s Ear; then, turning it on the other side, she scratches the other Ear, out of which the like Worms drop also; and in all there may come out ten or twelve, which she raps up in a Linen-Rag, and gives them to those that brought the Child to her, who keep them in that Rag at home in their House; and when she has done so she gives them back the Child, which in reality cries no more. She once told me that she performed this by means of some words that she spake. There was a French Physician and a Naturalist there, who attentively beheld this, and told me that he could not conceive how it could be done; but that he knew very well that if a child had any of these Worms in its head it would quickly die. In so much that the Moors and other inhabitants of Caire look upon this as a great Vertue, and give her every time a great many maidins (pieces of money). They say that it is a secret which hath been long in the Family. There are children every day carried to her, roaring and crying, and as many would see the thing done, need only to follow them, provided they be not Musulman Women who carry them, for then it would cost an Avanie; but when they are Christian or Jewish Women, one may easily enter and give a few maidins to that Worm-drawer.”1264 This is most probably but a sleight-of-hand performance, since “worms, like those which breed in musty weevily flower,” could easily be obtained and concealed in her hand or sleeve; imagination would then effect the cure, as probably it had done the disease. Dr. Livingstone and his party, in traveling in South Africa, |
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