Part 20
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:
O’i wiw wy i ê â, a’i weuaw O’i wyau y weua; E’ weua ei wî aia’, A’i weuau yw ieuau iâ.
I perish by my art; dig mine own grave; I spin the thread of life; my death I weave.[835]
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:
One summer night, says a legend old, A Moth a Firefly sought to woo: “Oh, wed me, I pray, thou bright star-child, To win thee there’s nothing I’d dare not do.”
“If thou art sincere,” the Firefly cried, “Go--bring me a light that will equal my own; Not until then will I deign be thy bride;”-- Undaunted the Moth heard her mocking tone.
Afar he beheld a brilliant torch, Forward he dashed, on rapid wing, Into the light to bear it hence;-- When he fell a scorched and blighted thing.--
Still ever the Moths in hope to win, Unheeding the lesson, the gay Firefly, Dash, reckless, the dazzling torch within, And, vainly striving, fall and die!
WASHINGTON, D. C., June 24, 1864.
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] Columella[844] has described this practice in verse, and Ælian[845] 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 Palladius[849] relate the same story. Constantinus, likewise, whose verses, as translated in Moufet’s Theater of Insects, are as follows:
But if against this plague no art prevail, The Trojan arts will do’t, when others fail. A woman barefoot with her hair untied, And naked breasts must walk as if she cried, And after Venus’ sports she must surround Ten times, the garden beds and orchard ground. When she hath done, ’tis wonderful to see, The caterpillars fall off from the tree, As fast as drops of rain, when with a crook, For acorns or apples the tree is shook.[850]
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:
Stamp but with oyl those worms that eat the leaves, Whose backs are painted with a greenish hue, Anoint your body with ’t, and whilst that cleaves, You shall with gentle sleep bid cares adieu.”[853]
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]
ORDER VII.
HOMOPTERA.
Cicadidæ--Harvest-flies.
The Cicadas, _C. plebeja_, Linn., called by the ancient Greeks, (by whom, as well as by the Chinese, they were kept in cages for the sake of their song,) _Tettix_, seem to have been the favorites of every Grecian bard, from Homer and Hesiod to Anacreon and Theocritus. Supposed to be perfectly harmless, and to live only upon dew, they were addressed by the most endearing epithets, and were regarded as almost divine. Thus sings the muse of Anacreon:
Happy creature! what below Can more happy live than thou? Seated on thy leafy throne, Summer weaves thy verdant crown. Sipping o’er the pearly lawn, The fragrant nectar of the dawn, Little tales thou lov’st to sing, Tales of mirth--an insect king. Thine the treasures of the field, All thy own the seasons yield; Nature paints thee for the year, Songster to the shepherds dear; Innocent, of placid fame, What of man can boast the same? Thine the loudest voice of praise, Harbinger of fruitful days; Darling of the tuneful nine, Phœbus is thy sire divine; Phœbus to thy note has given Music from the spheres of heaven; Happy most as first of earth, All thy hours are peace and mirth; Cares nor pains to thee belong, Thou alone art ever young. Thine the pure immortal vein, Blood nor flesh thy life sustain; Rich in spirits--health thy feast, Thou art a demi-god at least.
But the old witticism, attributed to the incorrigible Rhodian sensualist, Xenarchus, gives quite a different reason to account for the supposed happiness of these insects:
Happy the Cicadas’ lives, Since they all have voiceless wives![865]
Plutarch, reasoning upon that singular Pythagorean precept which forbid the wife to admit swallows in the house, remarks: “Consider, and see whether the swallow be not odious and impious ... because she feedeth upon flesh, and, besides, killeth and devoureth especially grasshoppers (Cicadas), which are sacred and musical.”[866]
The Athenians were so attached to the Cicadas, that their elders were accustomed to fasten golden images of them in their hair. Thucidides incidentally remarks that this custom ceased but a little before his time. He adds, also, that the fashion prevailed, too, for a long time with the elders of the Ionians, from their affinity to the Athenians.[867]