Part 19
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:
The legitimate wife of Hwangti, named Siling Shi, began to rear Silk-worms: At this period Hwangti invented the art of making clothing.
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]