consequence of her reports been named _Fulgora lanternaria_. This insect
has the head produced into a large inflated proboscis more than an inch
in length, which is said to carry an intense luminosity within its
transparent walls, as a candle is carried within a lantern. The fair
observer says that the first discovery which she made of this property
caused her no small alarm. The Indians had brought her several of these
insects, which by daylight exhibited no extraordinary appearance, and
she enclosed them in a box until she should have an opportunity of
drawing them, placing it upon a table in her lodging-room. In the middle
of the night the confined insects made such a noise as to awake her, and
she opened the box, the inside of which, to her great astonishment,
appeared all in a blaze; and in her fright letting it fall, she was not
less surprised to see each of the insects apparently on fire. She soon,
however, divined the cause of this unexpected phenomenon, and
re-enclosed her brilliant guests in their place of confinement. She adds
that the light of one of these Fulgorae is sufficiently bright to read a
newspaper by: and though the tale of her having drawn one of these
insects by its own light is without foundation, she doubtless might have
done so if she had chosen.
This circumstantial and apparently truthful statement has brought no
small odium on the fair narrator. Other naturalists who have had
opportunities of seeing the insect in its native regions strongly deny
its luminosity. The inhabitants of Cayenne, according to the French
Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, aver that it does not shine at all;
and this is confirmed by M. Richard, a naturalist, who reared the
species. The learned and accurate Count Hoffmansegg states that his
insect collector Herr Sieber, a practised entomologist of thirty years'
experience, who during a sojourn of several years in Brazil took many
specimens of the _Fulgora lanternaria_, never saw a single one which was
in the slightest degree luminous. There is a kindred species in China,
_F. candelaria_, very common in those glazed boxes of insects which the
Chinese sell to mariners; this also has been supposed to emit light, but
Dr Cantor assures us that he has never observed the least luminosity in
this species.
Thus it would seem that the obloquy which has fallen upon the ingenious
lady is not altogether undeserved, and that for the sake of a telling
story, she has been indeed "telling a story." But we may imagine her
offended ghost looking round and saying, "All these gentlemen merely say
they have _not_ seen the light; now I say I have: is there no one who
will verify my statement?"
M. Lacordaire,--an authority on South American insects second to none,
says that he himself indeed never saw a luminous _Fulgora_ all the time
he was collecting in Brazil and Cayenne, and that most of the
inhabitants of the latter country, when questioned on the subject,
denied the fact, yet _that others of the natives as distinctly affirmed
that it is luminous_. He asks whether it is not possible that the light
may be confined to one sex, and thus the conflicting testimony be
reconciled; and gives it as his opinion that the point is rather one
which requires more careful observation, than one which we can consider
absolutely decided.[150]
Again, the Marquis Spinola, in an elaborate paper on this tribe,
published in the Annals of the Entomological Society of France,[151]
strenuously contends that the remarkable development of the frontal
portion of the head in the whole race is luminous. And finally, a friend
of Mr Wesmael assured him that he had himself seen the American
_Fulgora_ luminous while alive.[152]
It may help to sustain our faith in the veracity of Madame Merian, to
know that there is some reason for attributing occasional luminosity to
well-known English insects, of which hundreds, and even thousands, have
been taken without manifesting a trace of the phenomenon. Mr Spence, in
his interesting Letter on Luminous Insects,[153] adduces the following
evidence:--Insects "may be luminous which have not hitherto been
suspected of being so. This seems proved by the following fact: A
learned friend has informed me, that when he was curate of Ickleton,
Cambridgeshire, in 1780, a farmer of that place, of the name of
Simpringham, brought to him a mole-cricket (_Gryllotalpa vulgaris_,
Latr.), and told him that one of his people seeing a _Jack-o'-lantern_,
pursued it, and knocked it down, when it proved to be this insect, and
the identical specimen shewn to him.
"This singular fact, while it renders it probable that some insects are
luminous which no one has imagined to be so, seems to afford a clue to
the, at least, partial explanation of the very obscure subject of _ignes
fatui_, and to shew that there is considerable ground for the opinion
long ago maintained by Ray and Willughby, that the majority of these
supposed meteors are no other than luminous insects. That the large
varying lambent flames mentioned by Beccaria to be very common in some
parts of Italy, and the luminous globes seen by Dr Shaw cannot be thus
explained, is obvious. These were probably electrical phenomena;
certainly not explosions of phosphuretted hydrogen, as has been
suggested by some, which must necessarily have been momentary. But that
the _ignis fatuus_ mentioned by Derham as having been seen by himself,
and which he describes as flitting about a thistle, was, though he seems
of a different opinion, no other than some luminous insect, I have
little doubt. Mr Sheppard informs me that, travelling one night between
Stamford and Grantham on the top of the stage, he observed for more than
ten minutes a very large _ignis fatuus_ in the low marshy grounds, which
had every appearance of being an insect. The wind was very high:
consequently, had it been a vapour it must have been carried forward in
a direct line; but this was not the case. It had the same motion as a
_Tipula_, flying upwards and downwards, backwards and forwards,
sometimes appearing as settled, and sometimes as hovering in the air.
Whatever be the true nature of these meteors, of which so much is said
and so little known, it is singular how few modern instances of their
having been observed are on record. Dr Darwin declares, that though in
the course of a long life he had been out in the night, and in the
places where they are said to appear, times without number, he had never
seen anything of the kind; and from the silence of other philosophers of
our own times, it should seem that their experience is similar."
A paper by Mr R Chambers on the subject adduces the additional
testimony of facts observed by good naturalists, as Dickson and
Curtis the eminent botanists, and Stothard the painter and entomologist,
by his own father Mr A. Chambers, and by Joseph Simpson, a fisherman
living near Boston, all of which strongly corroborate the probability
that some, at least, of the _ignes fatui_ are produced by luminous
insects.[154] Mr Main narrates the case of a farmer who stated
that he had pursued a Will-o'-the-wisp, and coming up with it had
knocked it down, when it proved to be an insect "exactly like a
Maggy-long-legs"--that is, the common Crane-fly (_Tipula oleracea_), the
very insect with which Mr Sheppard had compared the motions of the
luminous flame observed by him.[155] Mr Spence argues that while gaseous
emanations may be a cause of stationary _ignes fatui_, the same cause
will not explain those which flit along from place to place; and that
these are probably luminous insects, however rarely they may have come
under the notice of entomologists. "A very strong argument for the
possibility of some flying insects being occasionally luminous (in
England) is afforded by the facts ... of luminous caterpillars having
been within these few years observed for the first time since entomology
has been attended to, and that by observers every way competent. If
caterpillars so very common as those of _Mamestra oleracea_ may
sometimes, though so rarely, be luminous, and if, as Dr Boisduval
suggests, and is very probable, this appearance was caused by disease,
it is obvious that flying insects may be also occasionally (though
seldom) luminous from disease--a supposition which will at once explain
the rarity of the occurrence, and the circumstance that insects of such
different genera, and even orders, are said to have exhibited this
phenomenon."[156]
These highly curious facts should make observers cautious in strongly
denying statements made by others of phenomena, when they themselves
have not been so fortunate as to witness them, even though they may
think their opportunities to have been as favourable as those of the
_soi-disant_ observer.[157]
But we have not yet dismissed Madame Merian. If acquitted of falsehood
here, she stands arraigned on a second charge of similar character.
In most tropical countries there are found hideous hairy spiders of
monstrous size and most repulsive appearance; short-legged, sombre-hued,
ferocious marauders of the night, that by day lurk in obscure retreats
under stones, or in burrows in the earth.
Guiana produces a formidable species of this sort (_Mygale avicularia_),
which measures three inches in length, and whose feet--though the genus
is, as I have said, comparatively short-limbed--cover an area some
eight or ten inches in diameter. Madame Merian has exquisitely figured
the tragical end of a tiny humming-bird, surprised by one of these
monsters on her eggs; the petite bird overthrown under the fangs of the
sprawling spider, one of whose feet is in the nest. It was on the
authority of this lady that Linnaeus gave the name of _avicularia_ to the
species. Later naturalists have scouted the whole story. Mr MacLeay, who
resided in Cuba, says that there are indeed there huge spiders, allied
to our garden spider, which make a geometric net, strong enough to
embarrass small birds; but that these do not attempt to catch such prey,
and never molest birds at all. On the other hand, he avers that the
Cuban _Mygale_, an allied species to that of Guiana, makes no web, and
has no power of injuring birds. He put this to the test of experiment;
for having maimed a humming-bird, he thrust it into the _Mygale's_ hole,
which, instead of seizing the victim, retreated as in fear out of his
den. This Mr MacLeay supposes to be conclusive; but a moment's
reflection will shew how equivocal is the evidence. The spider may not
have been hungry; or he may have been taken aback by the sudden
intrusion; or he might not choose to take prey that he had not stolen
upon and slaughtered _suo more_; or he may have muttered in the
Arachnidan language,--
"Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes."
Because a wolf will cower down in the corner of his lair (even a tiger
has been known to do so)--when a man suddenly enters his presence, and
will manifest the most abject fear, would it be philosophical to
ridicule the tales told of wolves pursuing and devouring men by night?
M. Langsdorff asked the people of Brazil if the Caranquexeira, or the
great _Mygale_ of that country, fed upon humming-birds, when they
answered him, with bursts of laughter, that it only gratified its maw
with large flies, ants, bees, wasps, beetles, &c.; an answer which the
traveller verified by his own personal experience.[158] If M. Langsdorff
means, which of course he does, that he learned by personal observation
that the spider _ordinarily_ feeds on insects, that fact is indubitable,
and never has been doubted; but if he means that he had experience that
it eats _only_ such prey, which is the question at issue, it is plain
that this experience proves no more than that he never witnessed such a
fact.
Percival, in his account of Ceylon, observes:--"There is an immense
spider here, with legs not less than four inches long, and having the
body covered with thick black hair." This was doubtless the _Mygale_ of
the island. "The webs which it makes are strong enough to entangle and
hold even small birds, which form its usual prey." Alluding to this
statement, Sir Emerson Tennent says:--
"As to the stories told of the _Mygale_ catching and killing birds, I am
satisfied, both from inquiry and observation, that, at least in Ceylon,
they are destitute of truth, and that (unless in the possible case of
acute suffering from hunger) this creature shuns all description of food
except soft insects and annelides." And yet he immediately adds:--"A
lady at Marandan, near Colombo, told me that she had, on one occasion,
seen a little house-lizard (_gecko_) seized and devoured by one of these
ugly spiders."[159] Does he not, then, credit his informant? Or are
lizards included in the category of "soft insects and annelides?"
Against this incredulity, resting on no better than negative evidence,
one might adduce collateral proof from analogy. There _are_ spiders
which feed on vertebrate animals, and there _are_ spiders whose webs
catch birds. The large and beautiful _Nephila claripes_ of tropical
America weaves strong threads of yellow silk in the paths of the woods,
converging to a web quite strong enough to arrest a bird of weak flight.
It must have been a species allied to this, but certainly, I think, not
the same, of which Dr Walsh speaks in his "Travels in Brazil." "Among
the insects is an enormous spider, which I did not observe elsewhere. In
passing through an opening between some trees, I felt my head entangled
in some obstructions, and on withdrawing it, my straw hat remained
behind. When I looked up I saw it suspended in the air, entangled in the
meshes of an immense cobweb, which was drawn like a veil of thick gauze
across the opening, and was expanded from branch to branch of the
opposite trees as large as a sheet ten or twelve feet in diameter. The
whole of this space was covered with spiders of the same species but
different sizes; some of them, when their legs were expanded, forming a
circle of six or seven inches in circumference.[160] They were
particularly distinguished by bright spots. The cords composing the web
were of a glossy yellow, like the fibres of silkworms, and equally
strong."
There is a creature found in the tropical parts of both hemispheres,
called _Solpuga_, which though not exactly a spider, is yet so closely
allied to that family as to be in some measure responsible for its
misdoings. It is about as large as the _Mygale_, and, with sufficient
general resemblance to it to warrant its being popularly considered a
spider, it has much the same habits and appetites. Captain Hutton, in a
most interesting memoir, describes the details of an Indian species
under the name of _Galeodes vorax_. Among many other details, he
says--"This species is extremely voracious, feeding at night upon
beetles, flies, and even large lizards; and sometimes gorging itself to
such a degree as to render it almost unable to move. A lizard, three
inches long, _exclusive of tail_, was entirely devoured; the spider
sprung at it, and made a seizure immediately behind the shoulder, never
quitting its hold until the whole was consumed. The poor lizard
struggled violently at first, rolling over and over in its agony, but
the spider kept firm hold, and gradually sawed away with its double jaws
into the very entrails of the victim. The only parts uneaten were the
jaws and part of the skin, although the lizard was at least five inches
long from nose to extremity of tail. After this meal, the spider
remained gorged and motionless for about a fortnight, being much
swollen and distended.
"A young sparrow, about half grown, was placed under a bell-glass with a
_Galeodes_; the moment the luckless bird moved, the spider seized him by
the thigh, which he speedily sawed off, in spite of the sparrow's
fluttering; and then as the poor bird continued to struggle in pain, the
savage seized him by the throat, and soon put an end to his sufferings
by cutting off the head. It did not, however, devour the bird, nor any
part of it, but seemed satisfied with having killed it.
"On another occasion, I gave it a large garden-lizard, which was
instantly seized by the middle of the body; the lizard, finding that it
could not shake off its adversary, turned its head, and bit the
_Galeodes_ on the leg, which obliged it immediately to quit its hold and
retreat.
"On another occasion my friend, Dr Baddeley, confined one of these
spiders in a wall-shade with two young musk rats (_Sorex Indicus_), both
of which were killed by it."[161]
In an expedition to the Kurruckpoor Hills, south of Monghyr, Captain
Sherwill found upon the summit of Maruk, a table-topped hill of 1100
feet elevation, several of the gigantic webs of the Epeira spider, some
of which measured (including the guy-ropes) from ten to twelve feet in
diameter, the reticulated portion being about five feet, in the centre
of which the spider, of a formidable size and very active, sits waiting
for prey. "The webs," he says, "from their great strength, offered a
sensible resistance when forcing our way through them. In the web of
one of the spiders we found a bird entangled, and the young spiders,
about eight in number, feeding upon the carcase. The bird was, with the
exception of its legs and beak, entirely enveloped in the web, and was
much decomposed; the entwined web had completely pinioned the wings of
the bird, so as to render its escape impossible. The bird was about the
size of a field-lark, and was near the centre of the web; the old spider
was about a foot above the bird: we secured, measured, and bottled him.
Its dimensions were six inches across the legs, and it was armed with a
formidable pair of mandibles."[162]
It is clear, then, that there is nothing absurd or contrary to
probability in the statement that spiders attack, overcome, and devour
birds. But Madame Merian is here again favoured with direct witnesses to
sustain her good faith. M. Moreau de Jonnes expressly mentions, on his
own authority, that the South American Mygale climbs the branches of
trees to devour the young of humming-birds. But the most satisfactory
statement is made by Mr H. W. Bates, who has recently returned from the
interior of Brazil after many years spent in studying the entomology of
that vast region. No one will deny his competency as a witness. "Now I
will relate to you," he says, "what I saw in the month of June 1849, in
the neighbourhood of Cameta. I was attracted by a curious movement of
the large gray-brown Mygale on the trunk of a vast tree: it was close
beneath a deep crevice or chink in the tree, across which this species
weaves a dense web, open for its exit and entrance at one end. In the
present instance the lower part of the web was broken, and two pretty
small finches were entangled in its folds; the finch was about the size
of the common siskin of Europe, and I judged the two to be male and
female; one of them was quite dead, but secured in the broken web; the
other was under the body of the spider, not quite dead, and was covered
in parts with the filthy liquor or saliva exuded by the monster. I was
on my return from a day's excursion by land at the time, with my boxes
full of valuable and delicate insects, and six miles from my house, and
therefore could not have brought the specimens home, even if I had
wished, which I did not, as the spider was a very common species, easily
to be procured nearer home. The species I cannot name; I sent several
fine specimens, stuffed, to London, in 1851; it is wholly of a
gray-brown colour, and clothed with coarse pile. Doubtless you will
immediately know the exact species to which I refer.
"If the Mygales did not prey upon vertebrated animals, I do not see how
they could find sufficient subsistence.
[Illustration: BIRD-EATING SPIDER.]
"On the extensive sandy campos of Santarem, so bare in vegetation, there
are hundreds of the broad slanting burrows of the large stout species,
(that fine one, dark brown with paler lines down the legs, of which I
sent specimens in 1851.) The campos, I know, from close research, to be
almost destitute of insects, but at the same time to swarm with small
lizards, and some curious ground finches of the Emberiza group (one of
which has a song wonderfully resembling our yellow bunting of
England), besides which, vast numbers of the _Caprimulgidae_ and ground
doves lay their eggs on the bare ground.
"I believe this species of Mygale feeds on these animals and their eggs
at night. Just at the close of day, when I have been hurrying home, not
liking to be benighted on the pathless waste, I have surprised these
monsters, who retreated within the mouths of their burrows on my
approach."[163]
[142] _Brit. Rept._, 51.
[143] _Penny Cyclop._, xxvi. 348.
[144] Loudon's _Mag. Nat. Hist._ for 1837, p. 441.
[145] _Zool._, 2305.
[146] Ibid., 2355.
[147] _Zool._, 7278.
[148] _Captivity among the Indians._
[149] _Zool._, 2269.
[150] _Introd. a l'Entom._, ii. 143.
[151] _Op. cit._, viii. 163.
[152] _Westwood's Mod. Classif. Ins._, ii. 430.
[153] _Introd. to Entom._ Lett. xxv.
[154] _Mag. Nat. Hist._, New Ser., i. 353.
[155] Ibid., i. 553.
[156] Dr Boisduval, one hot evening in June, found caterpillars on grass
which diffused a phosphorescent light; he thought them to be those of
_Mamestra oleracca_--one of the most abundant of our moths--but they
seemed larger than common; and whether owing to want of care in the
rearing or to a condition of disease--which may, indeed, have been the
cause of their luminosity--none of them attained the chrysalis state,
and so the species was not absolutely decided.
[157] _Introd. to Entom._, _loc. cit._
[158] _Exped. into Int. of Brazil._
[159] Tennent, _Ceylon_, ii. 226.
[160] Probably we should read "diameter" for "circumference." A spider
whose legs cover an area of six inches _in circumference_ is by no means
rare even in England.
[161] _Journ. Asiat. Soc._
[162] _Proc. Entom. Soc._, November 1, 1852.
[163] _Proc. Entomol. Soc._, July 2, 1855.
VIII.
FASCINATION.
It is a notion of long standing and widely diffused, that certain
predaceous animals have a power, which, however, they only occasionally
exert, of paralysing the creatures on which they prey, so as utterly to
take away the faculty of flight, and even, in some circumstances, of
drawing them, as if by an irresistible influence, to their known and
dreaded destruction. This fascinating power has been most generally
attributed to serpents, and is supposed to reside in a peculiar glare
and fixity of the eyes, which appear to mesmerise the victims. If the
gaze be interrupted, _on either part_, though but for a moment, it is
supposed that the spell is broken. Is there any such power? or is it
merely one of the many myths with which popular natural history is still
burdened, and which it is the province of real science to explode? Let
us gather together a few of the facts on which the opinion rests.
I am not sure whether I ought to reckon as such the following statement,
for I do not know the value of the authority on which it rests. It is,
however, sufficiently curious.
Dr Bird, a somewhat appropriate authority in this case, mentions an
incident which happened in America. "Two boys lighted by chance upon a
large black snake; upon which one of them resolved to ascertain whether
the snake, so celebrated for its powers, could fascinate him. He
advanced a few steps nearer the snake, and made a stand, steadily
looking on him. When the snake observed him in that situation, he raised
his head with a quick motion, and the lad says, that at that instant
there appeared something to flash in his eyes, which he could compare to
nothing more similar than the rays of light thrown from a glass or
mirror when turned in the sun-shine; he said it dazzled his eyes; at the
same time the colours appeared very beautiful ... he felt as if he was
in a whirlpool, and that every turn brought him nearer to the centre.
His comrade seeing him approach nearer to the snake, immediately ran and
killed it."[164]