of a conversation which he had with the Hottentot driver of his wagon,
which seems to make out the claims of the Mantis to be the God of the
Hottentots--as it is even yet called. The driver directed his attention
to “a small insect,” which he called by its above-mentioned familiar
name, and alluded to the notions he had in former times connected with
it. “I asked him, ‘Did you ever worship this insect then?’ He answered,
‘Oh, yes! a thousand times; always before I came to Bethelsdorf.
Whenever I saw this little creature, I would fall down on my knees
before him and pray.’ ‘What did you pray to him for?’ ‘I asked him to
give me a good master, and plenty of thick milk and flesh.’ ‘Did you
pray for nothing else?’ ‘No, sir; I did not then know that I wanted
anything else.... Whenever I used to see this animal (holding the insect
still in his hand) I used sometimes to fall down immediately before it;
but if it was in the wagon-road, or in a foot-path, I used to push it up
as gently as I could, to place it behind a bush, for fear a wagon should
crush it, or some men or beasts would put it to death. If a Hottentot,
by some accident, killed or injured this creature, he was sure to be
unlucky all his lifetime, and could never shoot an elephant or a buffalo
afterward.’”[266]
Niuhoff, in his account of his travels in Java in 1643, tells us “the
Javanese set two of these little creatures (Mantes) a fighting together,
and lay money on both sides, as we do at a cock-match.”[267] Among the
Chinese also this quarrelsome property in the genus Mantis is turned
into an entertainment. They are so fond of gaming and witnessing fights
between animals that, as says Mr. Barrow in his Travels, “they have
even extended their inquiries after fighting animals into the insect
tribe, and have discovered a species of Gryllus or Locust that will
attack each other with such ferocity as seldom to quit their hold
without bringing away at the same time a limb of their antagonist. These
little creatures are fed and kept apart in bamboo cages, and the custom
of making them devour each other is so common that, during the summer
months, scarcely a boy is to be seen without his cage of
grasshoppers.”[268] The boys in Washington City, who call the Mantis the
“Rear-horse,” are also fond of this amusement.
Among the legends of St. Francis Xavier, the following is found. Seeing
a Mantis moving along in its solemn way, holding up its two fore-legs,
as in the act of devotion, the Saint desired it to sing the praises of
God, whereupon the insect caroled forth a fine canticle.[269]
The _Mantis religiosa_ of America is said to make a most interesting pet
when tamed, which can be done in a very short time and with but little
pains. Professor Glover, of the Maryland Agricultural College, tells me
he once knew a lady in Washington who kept a Mantis on her window which
soon grew so tame as to take readily a fly or other small insect out of
her hand. But Mrs. Taylor, in her Orthopterian Defense, has given us the
particulars in full of a Mantis which she had petted. She speaks of it
under the name of “Queen Bess,” and in her most interesting style, as
follows:
“Queen Bess, of famous memory, would alight on my shoulder and take all
her food from me half a dozen times a day. When she omitted her visit I
knew she had been hunting on her own account. All night long she would
keep watch and guard under the mosquito-net. The silk (the thread with
which the insect was bound) was fastened to the post of the bed; and woe
betide an unfortunate mosquito who fancied for his supper a drop of
claret. It was the drollest, the most laughter-moving sensation, to feel
one of these trumpeters saluting your nose or forehead, and hear Queen
Bess approaching with those long claws, creeping slowly, softly, nearer
and nearer; to feel the fine prick of the lancet setting in for a
tipple; then you would suppose a dozen fine needles had been suddenly
drawn across the part; then, _presto!_ Bess’s strong, saber-like claws
had the jolly trumpeter tucked into her capacious jaws before you could
open your eyes to ascertain the state of affairs.
“These creatures very seldom fly far,” continues Mrs. Taylor, “but walk
in a most stately and dignified manner. Queen Bess could not bear to be
overlooked or slighted(!); and as sure as she saw me bending over the
magnifier with an insect, and I thought she was ten yards off, the
insect would be incontinently snapped out of my fingers. Many a valuable
specimen disappeared in this way. I learned to put her at these times in
the sounding-board of an Æolian harp, which was generally placed in the
window. Her majesty liked music of this kind amazingly; as the vibration
was _felt_ though not heard. I presume she fancied she was serenaded by
the singing leaves of the forest. I knew she would have remained there
spell-bound until driven forth by hunger, if I did not remove her when I
was not afraid of her company.
“As I have begun my ‘experiences,’” continues the same writer, “I will
go through with them and confess that I was obliged from circumstances
to attach more than accident to her prophetic capacity--her
fortune-telling. I have not a grain of superstition to contend against
in other matters, having so much reverence for the Creator of all things
that I certainly have no fear of anything earthly or spiritually
conveyed to the senses. But I was taught by the saddest teacher,
Experience, that whenever Queen Bess’s refusal went unheeded I was the
sufferer. The first time I ever tried it was to determine a vacillating
presentiment I felt about trying a new horse whose reputation was far
from good. I placed Queen Bess before me, held up my finger:
“‘Attention! Queen Bess, would you advise me to try that horse?’
“She was standing on her hind legs, her antennæ erect, wings wide
spread. I repeated the question. Antennæ fell; wings folded; and down
she went, gradually, until her head and long thorax were buried beneath
her front legs. I took her advice, and did not venture. Two days later
the horse threw his rider and killed him.
“Here was the turning-point. Was I to allow such folly to master me? If
French girls do take a Mantis at the junction of three roads, and ask
her on which their lover will come, and watch the insect turning and
examining each road with her weird sibyl head,[270]--if French girls
commit such follies, should I, a staid American woman, follow their
example--putting my faith in the caprices of an insect? Pshaw! I was
above such folly. So the next time Queen Bess was consulted a more
decided refusal was given; but I disregarded her warning, and most
sorely did I repent it. Again she would approve, by standing more erect,
if possible, spreading and closing her wings; then all was sunshine with
me. So it went for many months. Many others have had the same
experience, if they will confess it honestly. I learned to obey the
hidden head more carefully than any other, I am sorry to say; and I
never, in one single instance, knew her to refuse her opinion; and I
never knew it to be wrong in whatever way she announced it.”
This same superstitious woman says that boys and girls try their future
expectations by making a mimic chariot, ballasting it with small
pebbles, shot, or any such like thing, and harnessing the Mantis in with
silk. Upon being freighted she rises immediately, as if to try the
weight; if too heavy she will not fly. Lighten the chariot, and she will
soar away to a tree or a field; then her owner is to be a lucky boy. If
she will not go at all, or only a short distance, and soon come down,
misfortune is to be his doom.[271]
Other superstitions among us, with respect to the Mantis are as follows:
When the Mantis (Rear-horse) kneels, it sees an angel in the way, or
hears the rustle of its wings. When it alights on your hand, you are
about to make the acquaintance of a distinguished person; if it alights
on your head, a great honor will shortly be conferred upon you. If it
injures you in any way, which it does but seldom, you will lose a valued
friend by calumny. Never kill a Mantis, as it bears charms against evil.
From the great resemblance of many species of Mantis to the leaves of
the trees upon which they feed, some travelers, who have observed them,
have declared that they saw the leaves of trees become living creatures,
and take flight. Madame Merian informs us of a similar opinion among
the Indians of Surinam, who believed these insects grew like leaves upon
the trees, and when they were mature, loosened themselves and crawled,
or flew away.
We find also in the works of Piso an account of insects becoming plants.
Speaking of the Mantis, that author says: “Those little animals change
into a green and tender plant, which is of two hands breadth. The feet
are fixed into the ground first; from these, when necessary humidity is
attracted, roots grow out, and strike into the ground; thus they change
by degrees, and in a short time become a perfect plant. Sometimes only
the lower part takes the nature and form of a plant, while the upper
part remains as before, living and movable; after some time the animal
is gradually converted into a plant. In this Nature seems to operate in
a circle, by a continual retrograde motion.”[272]
There may be, however, much truth in this remarkable metamorphosis; for,
that an insect may strike root into the earth, and, from the
co-operation of heat and moisture, congenial to vegetation, produce a
plant of the cryptogamic kind, cannot be disputed. Westwood states that
he has seen a species of _Clavaria_, both of the undivided and branched
kinds, which had sprung from insects, and were four times larger than
the insects themselves. In truth, it cannot then be denied that Piso may
not have seen a plant of a proportionate magnitude which had likewise
grown out of a Mantis. The pupæ of bees, wasps, and cicadas, have been
known to become the nidus of a plant, to throw up stems from the front
part of the head, and change in every respect into a vegetable, and
still retain the shell and exterior appearance of the parent insect at
the root. Specimens of these vegetated animals are frequently brought
from the West Indies. Mr. Drury had a beetle in the perfect state, from
every part of which small stalks and fibers sprouted forth; they were
entirely different from the tufts of hair that are observed in a few
Coleopterous insects, such as the _Buprestis fascicularius_ of the Cape
of Good Hope, and were certainly a vegetable production.[273] Mr.
Atwood, in his account of Dominica, describes a “vegetable fly” as
follows: “It is of the appearance and size of a small Cock-chafer, and
buries itself in the ground, where it dies; and from its body springs up
a small plant, resembling a young coffee tree, only that its leaves are
smaller. The plant is often overlooked, from the supposition people have
of its being no other than a coffee plant, but on examining it properly,
the difference is easily distinguished.... The head, body, and feet of
the insect appearing at the foot as perfect as when alive.”[274]
Dr. Colin, of Philadelphia, has mentioned, also, on the authority of a
missionary, a “vegetable fly,” similar to the last mentioned, on the
Ohio River.[275]
The inhabitants of the Sechell Islands raise the _Mantis siccifolia_, or
Dry-leaf Mantis, as an object of commerce and natural history.
Achetidæ--Crickets.
In the Island of Barbados, the natives look upon the creaking chirp of a
species of Cricket, to which Hughes has given the name of the
_Ash-colored_ or _Sickly Cricket_, when heard in the house, as an omen
of death to some one of the family.[277]
In England, also, is the Cricket’s chirp sometimes looked upon as
prognosticating death. “When Blonzelind expired,” Gay, in his Pastoral
Dirge, says,
And shrilling Crickets in the chimney cry’d.[278]
So also in Reed’s Old Plays is the Cricket’s cry ominous of death:
And the strange Cricket i’ th’ oven sings and hops.
The same superstition is found in the following line from the Œdipus of
Dryden and Lee:
Owels, ravens, Crickets, seem the watch of death.
Gaule mentions, among other vain observations and superstitious
ominations thereupon, “the Cricket’s chirping behind the chimney stack,
or creeping on the foot-pace.”[279]
Dr. Nathaniel Horne, after saying that “by the flying and crying of
ravens over their houses, especially in the dusk of evening, and when
one is sick, they conclude death,” adds, “the same they conclude of a
Cricket crying in a house where there was wont to be none.”[280]
“Some sort of people,” says Mr. Ramsay, in his Elminthologia, “at every
turn, upon every accident, how are they therewith terrified! If but a
Cricket unusually appear, or they hear but the clicking of a
Death-watch, as they call it, they, or some one else in the family,
shall die!”[281]
Gilbert White, the accurate naturalist of Selborne, speaking of
Crickets, says: “They are the house-wife’s barometer, foretelling her
when it will rain; and are prognostics sometimes, she thinks, of ill or
good luck, of the death of a near relation, or the approach of an absent
lover. By being the constant companions of her solitary hours, they
naturally become the objects of her superstition.”[282]
The voice of the Cricket, says the Spectator, has struck more terror
than the roaring of a lion.
Mrs. Bray also notices that the Cricket’s chirp in England, which in
almost all other countries, and in that too in some families, as will be
shown hereafter, is considered a cheerful and a welcome note, the
harbinger of joy,--is deemed by the peasantry ominous of sorrow and
evil.[283]
“In Dumfries-shire,” says Sir William Jardine, “it is a common
superstition that if Crickets forsake a house which they have long
inhabited, some evil will befall the family; generally the death of some
member is portended. In like manner the presence or return of this
cheerful little insect is lucky, and portends some good to the
family.”[284]
Melton also says,--“17. That it is a sign of death to some in that
house where Crickets have been many years, if on a sudden they forsake
the chimney.”[285]
The departure of Crickets from a hearth where they have been heard, is,
at the present time, in England, considered an omen of misfortune.[286]
From the above statements of Mr. White, Mrs. Bray, and Sir William
Jardine, we learn that in England the Cricket’s chirp is not always
ominous of evil, but sometimes also of good luck, of joy, and of the
approach of an absent lover.
A correspondent of the “Notes and Queries” mentions the Cricket’s cry as
foreboding good luck.[287] So also a writer for “The Mirror,” remarking,
it is singular that the House-cricket should by some persons be
considered an unlucky, by others a lucky, inmate of the mansion. Those
who hold the latter opinion, he adds, consider the destruction of these
insects the means of bringing misfortunes on their habitations.[288]
Grose thus expresses this last superstition: Persons killing these
insects (including the Lady-bird, before mentioned) will infallibly,
within the course of the year, break a bone, or meet with some other
dreadful misfortune.[289]
That the belief that the appearance of Crickets in a house is a good
omen, and prognosticates cheerfulness and plenty, is pretty generally
entertained in England, may be inferred also from the manner in which it
has been embodied by Cowper, in his address to a Cricket
Chirping on his kitchen hearth.
His words are:
Whereso’er be thine abode,
Always harbinger of good.
And again in that admirable little tale of Charles Dickens, entitled
“The Cricket on the Hearth,” this good and happy superstition is
embodied. “It’s sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has been
so. To have a Cricket on the hearth is the luckiest thing in the world,”
says its heroine.
All these superstitions are more or less entertained in America,
brought here by the English themselves, and retained by their
descendants. That the Cricket is the “harbinger of good,” it gives me
pleasure to say, is the most common.
Another superstition obtaining in this country, and particularly in
Maryland and Virginia, is that Crickets are old folks and ought not
therefore to be destroyed. This probably arose from Crickets being found
about the kitchen hearth where the old folks were accustomed to sit.
Milton chose for his contemplative pleasures a spot where Crickets
resorted:
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom,
Far from all resort of mirth,
Save the Cricket on the hearth.[290]
The learned Scaliger is said to have been particularly delighted with
the chirping of these animals, and was accustomed to keep them in a box
for his amusement in his study.[291]
Mrs. Taylor, the writer of a very interesting series of papers on
insects for Harper’s Magazine, relates that in her travels through
Wales, she obtained several House-crickets in the old Castle of
Caernarvon. These she carried with her, in her journeyings to and fro
over the Kingdom, for several years, and at last brought them to this
country, where they were liberated in the snuggest corner of a Southern
hearth. Again a wanderer for many years, she went back to the old house
to see how her chirping friends were coming on, but, alas! she was told
by the then residents, with the utmost calmness, “they had had great
difficulty in _scalding_ them out, and they hoped there was not one left
on the premises!”[292]
In certain countries of Africa, Crickets are reported to constitute an
article of commerce. Some persons rear them, feed them in a kind of iron
oven, and sell them to the natives, who are very fond of their music,
thinking it induces sleep.[293] De Pauw finds some traces of the
Egyptian worship of the Scarabæus in this fondness for the music of the
“holy Crickets,” as he calls them, of Madagascar! By the rearing of
which insects, he tells us, the Africans make a living, and the rich
would think themselves at enmity with heaven, if they did not preserve
whole swarms in ovens constructed expressly for that purpose.[294]
The youth of Germany, Jaeger says, are extremely fond of Field-crickets,
so much so, that there is scarcely a boy to be seen who has not several
small boxes made expressly for keeping these insects in. So much
delighted are they, too, with their music, that they carry these boxes
of Crickets into their bed-rooms at night, and are soothed to sleep with
their chirping lullaby.[295]
On the contrary, others, as has been before mentioned, think there is
something ominous and melancholy in the Cricket’s cry, and use every
endeavor to banish this insect from their houses. “Lidelius tells us,”
says Goldsmith, “of a woman who was very much incommoded by Crickets,
and tried, but in vain, every method of banishing them from her house.
She at last accidentally succeeded; for having one day invited several
guests to her house, where there was a wedding, in order to increase the
festivity of the entertainment, she procured drums and trumpets to
entertain them. The noise of these was so much greater than what the
little animals were accustomed to, that they instantly forsook their
situation, and were never heard in that mansion more.”[296] Like many
other noisy persons, Crickets like to hear nobody louder than
themselves.
In the Island of Sumatra, Capt. Stuart tells me, a black Cricket is
looked upon with great respect, amounting almost to adoration. It is
deemed a grievous sin to kill it.
Baskets full of Field-crickets, Lopes de Gomara says, were found among
the provisions of the Indians of Jamaica when they were first
discovered.[297]
“The Criquet called Gryllus,” says Pliny in the words of Holland, “doth
mitigat catarrhs and all asperities offending the throat, if the same
bee rubbed therewith: also if a man doe but touch the amygdals or
almonds of the throat, with the hand wherewith he hath bruised or
crushed the said Criquet, it will appease the inflamation thereof.”[298]
Again, “The Cricket digged up and applied to the plase, earth and all
where it lay, is very good for the ears. Nigridius,” continues Pliny,
“attributeth many properties to this poore creature, and esteemeth it
not a little: but the Magicians much more by a faire deale: and why so?
Forsooth because it goeth, as it were, reculing backward, it pierceth
and boreth a hole into the ground, and never ceaseth all night long to
creake very shrill.
“The manner of hunting and catching them is this, They take a flie and
tie it above the middest at the end of a long haire of one’s head, and
so put the said flie into the mouth of the Cricquet’s hole; but first
they blow the dust away with their mouth, for fear lest the flie should
hide herself therein; the Cricket spies the sillie flie, seaseth upon
her presently and claspeth her round, and so they are both drawne foorth
together by the said haire.”[299]
At the present time, children in France practice the same method of
capturing Crickets for amusement; substituting, however, an ant for the
“sillie flie,” and a long straw for “the haire of one’s head.” Hence
comes the common proverb in France, _il est sot comme un grillon_. A
ruse for capturing the larva of the Cicindela, now commonly practiced by
entomologists, is founded on the same principle.
Pliny further says: “The Cricquets above rehearsed, either reduced into
a liniment, or else bound too, whole as they be, cureth the accident of
the lap of the eare, wounds, contusions, bruises,” etc.[300]
Dr. James, quoting Schroder and Dale, says: “The ashes of the Cricket
(_Gryllus domesticus_) exhibited, are said to be diuretic; the expressed
juice, dropped into the eyes, is a remedy for weakness of the sight, and
alleviates disorders of the tonsils, if rubbed on them.”[301]
The English name _Cricket_, the French _Cri-cri_, the Dutch _Krekel_,
and the Welsh _Cricell_ and _Cricella_, are evidently derived from the
_creak_-ing sounds of these insects.
Gryllidæ--Grasshoppers.
Mr. Hughes, after describing an ash-colored Grasshopper (which may be
his ash-colored cricket before mentioned),[302] remarks that the
superstitious of the inhabitants of Barbados are very apprehensive of
some approaching illness to the family, whenever this insect flies into
their houses in the evening or in the night.[303]
Athenæus tells us the ancient Greeks used to eat the common Grasshopper
and the Monkey-grasshopper as provocatives of the appetite. Aristophanes
says:
How can you, in God’s name, like Grasshoppers,
Catching them with a reed, and Cercopes?[304]
Turpin tells us there is a kind of brown Grasshopper in Siam, which the
natives consider a delicate food.[305]
“Fernandus Oniedus declareth furthermore,” says Peter Martyr in his
History of the West Indies, “that in a certain region called Zenu, lying
fourescore and tenne miles from Darrina Eastwarde, they exercise a
strange kinde of marchaundize: For in the houses of the inhabitantes
they found great chests and baskets, made of twigges and leaves of
certaine trees apt for that purpose, being all ful of Grasshoppers,
Grilles, Crabbes, Crefishes, Snails also, and Locustes, which destroie
the fields of corne, all well dried and salted. Being demanded why they
reserved such a multitude of these beastes: they answered, that they
kept them to be sowlde (sold) to the borderors, which dwell further
within the lande, and that for the exchange of these pretious birdes,
and salted fishes, they received of them certayne straunge thinges,
wherein partly they take pleasure, and partly use them for the
necessarie affaires.”[306]
In the account of the voyages of J. Huighen Linschoten, it is stated
that the inhabitants of Cumana eat “horse-leeches, bats, Grasshoppers,
spiders, bees, and raw, sodden, and roasted lice. They spare no living
creature whatsoever, but they eat it.”[307]