Part 19

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.