scolding women, which do imitate the hastiness and froward disposition
of the Wasp. Other sorts of them are produced out of the putrid corps of
the Crocodiles, if Horus and the Ægyptians be to be believed, for which
reason when they mean a Wasp, they set it forth by an horse or
crocodile. Nicander gives them the name _lukosnoadon_, because they
sometimes come from the dead carkasses of wolves. Bellenacensis and
Vicentius say, that Wasps come out of the putrefaction of an old deer’s
head, flying sometimes out of the eyes, sometimes out of the
nostrils.... There are those also that affirm that Wasps are begotten of
the earth and rottenness of some kind of fruits, as Albertus and the
Arabick scholiast.”
Of the Hornet, likewise, these writers tell the following fabulous
stories: “The Latins call the Hornets _Crabrones_, perchance from the
village Crabra in the countrey of Tusculum (where there are great store
of them), or from the word _Caballus_, _i.e._ a horse, who is said to be
their father. According to that of Ovid, _Met._ 15:
The warlike horse if buried under ground,
Shortly a brood of Hornets will be found.
Albertus calls it a yellow Bee. Cardanus will needs have them to arise
from the dead mule. Plutarch, in the life of Cleomedes, saith they come
out of horse flesh, as the Bees do out of the oxe his paunch. Virgil
saith they are produced of the asse.... I conceive that those are
produced of the harder flesh of the horse, and the Wasps of the more
tender flesh.”[590]
The Hornet (but whether or not it was the common species, _Vespa
crabro_, Linn., is uncertain), we learn from Scriptures was employed by
Providence to drive out the impious inhabitants of Canaan, and subdue
them under the hand of the Israelites.--“And I sent the Hornet before
you, which drave them out before you, even the two kings of the
Amorites.”[591]
In the second volume of Lieutenant Holman’s Travels, the following
anecdote is related: “Eight miles from Grandie----, the muleteers
suddenly called out ‘Marambundas! Marambundas!’ which indicated the
approach of Wasps. In a moment all the animals, whether loaded or
otherwise, lay down on their backs, kicking most violently; while the
blacks, and all persons not already attacked, ran away in different
directions, all being careful, by a wide sweep, to avoid the swarms of
tormentors that came forward like a cloud. I never witnessed a panic so
sudden and complete, and really believe that the bursting of a
water-spout could hardly have produced more commotion. However, it must
be confessed that the alarm was not without good reason, for so severe
is the torture inflicted by these pigmy assailants, that the bravest
travelers are not ashamed to fly, the instant they perceive the host
approaching, which is of common occurrence on the Campos.”[592]
Dr. Fairfax, in the Philosophical Transactions, mentions a lady, who had
such a horror of Wasps, that during the season in which they abound in
houses, she always confined herself to her apartment.[593]
Dr. James tells us: “The combs (of the Hornet) are recommended in a
drench for that disorder in horses, which Vigetius, L. 2, c. 23, calls
scrofula, meaning, I believe, what we call the strangles.”[594]
Hornets’-nest is smoked under horses’ noses for distemper, cold in the
head, and such like diseases. It is also given to horses in their feed
for thick-windedness.
The nests of Hornets are gathered by the country people to clean
spectacles.
Topsel, in his History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, has the
following prognostications of the weather from the appearances of
Hornets: “They serve instead of good almanacks to countrey people, to
foretel tempests and change of weather, as hail, rain, and snow: for if
they flie about in greater numbers, and be oftner seen about any place,
then usually they are wont, it is a signe of heat and fair weather the
next day. But if about twilight they are observed to enter often their
nests, as though they would hide themselves, you must the next day
expect rain, winde, or some stormy, troublesome or boysterous season:
whereupon Avienus hath these verses:
So if the buzzing troups of Hornets hoarse to flie,
In spacious air ’bout Autumn’s end you see,
When Virgil star the evening lamp espie,
Then from the sea some stormy tempest sure shall be.”[595]
“In the year 190, before the birth of Christ,” say Moufet and Topsel,
“as Julius witnesseth, an infinite multitude of Wasps flew into the
market at Capua, and sate in the temple of Mars, they were with great
diligence taken and burnt solemnly, yet they did foreshew the coming of
the enemy and the burning of the city.”[596]
The first Wasp seen in the season should always be killed. By so doing,
you secure to yourself good luck and freedom from enemies throughout the
year.[597] This is an English superstition, and it prevails in parts of
America. We have one, also, directly opposed to it, namely, that the
first Wasp seen in the season should not be killed if you wish to secure
to yourself good luck. Many of our people, too, will kill a Wasp at no
time, for, if killed, they say, it will bring upon them bad luck.
If a Wasp stings you, our superstitious think that your foes will get
the advantage of you.
If the first Wasp seen in the season be seen in your house, it is a sign
that you will form an unpleasant acquaintance. If the first Bee seen in
the season be seen in your house, it is a sign you will form a pleasant
and useful acquaintance. This arose doubtless from the apparent
uselessness of the former, and worth of the latter insect.
Wasps building in a house foretell the coming to want of the family
occupying it. Likewise arose from the unthriftiness of this insect.
If Hornets build high, the winter will be dry and mild; if low, cold and
stormy. This is firmly believed in Virginia; and the idea seems to be,
that if the nest is built high it will be more exposed to the wind than
if built low.
That a person may not be stung by Wasps, Paxamus says: “Let the person
be rubbed with the juice of wild-mallow, and he will not be stung.”[598]
The Creoles of Mauritius eat the larvæ of Wasps, which they roast in the
combs. In taking the nests, they drive off the Wasps by means of a
burning rag fastened to the end of a stick. The combs are sold at the
bazaar of Port Louis.[599]
The following story, of the cunning of the fox in killing the Wasps to
obtain their combs, is told by Ælian: “The fox (a subtile creature) is
said to prey upon the Wasp in this manner: he puts his tail into the
Wasps’ nest so long till it be all covered with Wasps, which he espying,
pulls it out and beats them against the next stone or tree he meets
withall till they be all dead, this being done again and again till all
the Wasps be destroyed, he sets upon their combs and devours them.”[600]
The Chinese Herbal contains a singular notion, prevalent also in India,
concerning the generation of the Sphex, or solitary Wasp. When the
female lays her eggs in the clayey nidus she makes in houses, she
incloses the dead body of a caterpillar in it for the subsistence of the
worms when they are hatched. Those who observed her entombing the
caterpillar did not look for the eggs, and immediately concluded that
the Sphex took the worm for the progeny, and say, that as she plastered
up the hole of the nest, she hummed a constant song over it, saying,
“_Class with me! class with me!_”--and the transformation gradually took
place, and was perfected in its silent grave by the next spring, when a
winged Wasp emerged, to continue its posterity the coming autumn in the
same mysterious way.[601]
Apidæ--Bees.
Concerning the piety of Bees, we find the following legends:
“A certaine simple woman having some stals of Bees which yeelded not
vnto her hir desired profit, but did consume and die of the murraine;
made her mone to another woman more simple than hir selfe: who gave her
councel to get a consecrated host or round Godamighty and put it among
them. According to whose advice she went to the priest to receive the
host; which when she had done, she kept it in hir month, and being come
home againe she tooke it out and put it into one of hir hives. Wherevpon
the murraine ceased, and the honey abounded. The woman therefore lifting
vp the hive at the due time to take out the honie, sawe there (most
strange to be seene) a chapel built by the Bees with an altar in it, the
wals adorned by marvelous skil of architecture with windowes
conveniently set in their places: also a dore and a steeple with bels.
And the host being laid vpon the altar, the Bees making a sweet noise
flew round about it.”[602]
Mr. Hawker’s legend is to this effect: A Cornish woman, one summer,
finding her Bees refused to leave their “cloistered home” and had
“ceased to play around the cottage flowers,” concealed a portion of the
Holy Eucharist which she obtained at church:
She bore it to her distant home,
She laid it by the hive
To lure the wanderers forth to roam,
That so her store might thrive;--
’Twas a wild wish, a thought unblest,
Some evil legend of the west.
But lo! at morning-tide a sign
For wondering eyes to trace,
They found above that Bread, a shrine
Rear’d by the harmless race!
They brought their walls from bud and flower,
They built bright roof and beamy tower!
Was it a dream? or did they hear
Float from those golden cells
A sound, as of a psaltery near,
Or soft and silvery bells?
A low sweet psalm, that grieved within
In mournful memory of the sin![603]
The following passage, from Howell’s _Parley of Beasts_, furnishes a
similar legend of the piety of Bees. Bee speaks:
“Know, sir, that we have also a religion as well as you, and so exact a
government among us here; our hummings you speak of are as so many hymns
to the Great God of Nature; and there is a miraculous example in
_Cæsarius Cisterniensis_, of some of the Holy Eucharist being let fall
in a meadow by a priest, as he was returning from visiting a sick body;
a swarm of Bees hard-by took It up, and in a solemn kind of procession
carried It to their hive, and their erected an altar of the purest wax
for it, where it was found in that form, and untouched.”[604]
Butler, quoting Thomas Bozius, tells us the following:
“Certaine theeves (thieves) having stolen the silver boxe wherein the
wafer-Gods vse to lie, and finding one of them there being loath,
belike, that he should lie abroad all night, did not cast him away, but
laid him under a hive: whom the Bees acknowledging advanced to a high
roome in the hive, and there insteade of his silver boxe made him
another of the whitest wax: and when they had so done, in worshippe of
him, and set howres they sang most sweetly beyond all measure about it:
yea the owner of them took them at it at midnight with a light and al.
Wherewith the bishop being made acquainted, came thither with many
others: and lifting vp the hive he sawe there neere the top a most fine
boxe, wherein the host was laid, and the quires of Bees singing about
it, and keeping watch in the night, as monkes do in their cloisters. The
bishop therefore taking the host, carried it with the greater honour
into the church: whether many resorting were cured of innumerable
diseases.”[605]
Another legend, from the School of the Eucharist, is as follows:
“A peasant swayed by a covetous mind, being communicated on Easter-Day,
received the Host in his mouth, and afterwards laid it among his bees,
believing that all the Bees of the neighborhood would come thither to
work their wax and honey. This covetous, impious wretch was not wholly
disappointed of his hopes; for all his neighbors’ Bees came indeed to
his hives, but not to make honey, but to render there the honours due to
the Creator. The issue of their arrival was that they melodiously sang
to Him songs of praise as they were able; after that they built a little
church with their wax from the foundations to the roof, divided into
three rooms, sustained by pillars, with their bases and chapiters. They
had there also an Altar, upon which they had laid the precious Body of
our Lord, and flew round about it, continuing their musick. The peasant
... coming nigh that hive where he had put the H. Sacrament, the Bees
issued out furiously by troops, and surrounding him on all sides,
revenged the irreverence done to their Creator, and stung him so
severely that they left him in a sad case. This punishment made this
miserable wretch come to himself, who, acknowledging his error, went to
find out the parish priest to confess his fault to him....” etc.[606]
We quote also another from the School of the Eucharist:
“A certain peasant of Auvergne, a province in France, perceiving that
his Bees were likely to die, to prevent this misfortune, was advised,
after he had received the communion, to reserve the Host, and to blow it
into one of the hives. As he tried to do it, the Host fell on the
ground. Behold now a wonder! On a sudden all the Bees came forth out of
their hives, and ranging themselves in good order, lifted the Host from
the ground, and carrying it in upon their wings, placed it among the
combes. After this the man went out about his business, and at his
return found that this advice had succeeded ill, for all his Bees were
dead....”[607]
We will close this series of legends with one from the Lives of the
Saints:
“When a thief by night had stolen St. Medard’s Bees, they, in their
master’s quarrel, leaving their hive, set upon the malefactor, and
eagerly pursuing him which way soever he ran, would not cease stinging
of him until they had made him (whether he would or no) to go back again
to their master’s house; and there, falling prostrate at his feet,
submissly to cry him mercy for the crime committed. Which being done, so
soon as the Saint extended unto him the hand of benediction, the Bees,
like obedient servants, did forthwith stay from persecuting him, and
evidently yielded themselves to the ancient possession and custody of
their master.”[608]
By the Greeks, Bees were accounted an omen of future eloquence;[609] the
soothsayers of the Romans, however, deemed them always of evil
augury.[610] They afforded also to the Romans presages of public
interest, “clustering, as they do, like a bunch of grapes, upon houses
or temples; presages, in fact, that are often accounted for by great
events.”[611] The instances of happy omens afforded by swarms of Bees
are the following:
“It is said of Pindar,” we read in Pausanias’ History of Greece, “that
when he was a young man, as he was going to Thespia, being wearied with
the heat, as it was noon, and in the height of summer, he fell asleep at
a small distance from the public road; and that Bees, as he was asleep,
flew to him and wrought their honey on his lips. This circumstance first
induced Pindar to compose verses.”[612]
A similar incident is mentioned in the life of Plato:
“Whilst _Plato_ was yet an infant carried in the arms of his mother
_Perictione, Aristo_ his father went to _Hymettus_ (a mountain in
_Attica_ eminent for abundance of Bees and Honey) to sacrifice to the
Muses or Nymphs, taking his Wife and Child along with him; as they were
busied in the Divine Rites, she laid the Child in a Thicket of Myrtles
hard by; to whom, as he slept (_in cunis dormienti_) came a Swarm of
Bees, Artists of Hymettian Honey, flying and buzzing about him, and (as
it is reported) made a Honeycomb in his mouth. This was taken for a
presage of the singular sweetness of his discourse; his future Eloquence
foreseen in his infancy.”[613]
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints we have the following:
“The birth of St. Ambrose happened about the year 340 B.C., and whilst
the child lay asleep in one of the courts of his father’s palace, a
swarm of Bees flew about his cradle, and some of them even crept in and
out at his mouth, which was open; and at last mounted up into the air so
high, that they quite vanished out of sight. This,” concludes the
Reverend Alban, “was esteemed a presage of future greatness and
eloquence.”[614]
Another instance is mentioned in the Feminine Monarchie, printed at
Oxford in 1634, p. 22.
“When _Ludovicus Vives_ was sent by Cardinal Wolsey to Oxford, there to
be a public professor of Rhetoric, being placed in the College of Bees,
he was welcomed thither by a swarm of Bees; which sweet creatures, to
signifie the incomparable sweetnesse of his eloquence, settled
themselves over his head, under the leads of his study, where they have
continued to this day.... How sweetly did all things then accord, when
in this neat μουσαῖον newly consecrated to the Muses, the Muses’
sweetest favorite was thus honoured by the Muses’ birds.”[615]
Moufet, in his Theater of Insects, and Topsel, in almost the same words
in his History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, gives the following
list of remarkable omens drawn from Bees:
“Whereas the most high God did create all other creatures for our use;
so especially the Bees, not only that as mistresses they might hold
forth to us a patern of politick and œconomic vertues, and inform our
understanding; but that they might be able as extraordinary foretellers,
to foreshew the success and event of things to come; for in the years
90, 98, 113, 208, before the birth of Christ, when as mighty huge swarms
of Bees did settle in the chief market-place, and in the beast-market
upon private citizens’ houses, and on the temple of Mars, there were at
that time stratagems of enemies against Rome, wherewith the whole state
was like to be surprised and destroyed. In the reign of Severus, the
Bees made combes in his military ensigns, and especially in the camp of
Niger. Divers wars upon this ensued between both the parties of Severus
and Niger, and battels of doubtful event, while at length the Severian
faction prevailed. The statues also of Antonius Pius placed here and
there all over Hetruria, were all covered with swarms of Bees; and after
that settled in the camp of Cassius; what great commotions after
followed Julius Capitolinus relates in his history. At what time also,
through the treachery of the Germans in Germany, there was a mighty
slaughter and overthrow of the Romans. P. Fabius, and Q. Elius being
consuls in the camp of Drusus in the tent of Hostilius Rutilus, a swarm
of Bees is reported to have sate so thick, that they covered the rope
and the spear that held up the tent. M. Lepidus, and Munat. Plancus
being consuls, as also in the consulship of L. Paulus, and C. Metellus,
swarms of Bees flying to Rome (as the augurs very well conjectured) did
foretell the near approach of the enemy. Pompey likewise making war
against Cæsar, when he had called his allies together, he set his army
in order as he went out of Dyrrachium, Bees met him and sate so thick
upon his ensigns that they could not be seen what they were. Philistus
and Ælian relate, that while Dionysius the tyrant did in vain spur his
horse that stuck in the mire, and there at length left him, the horse
quitting himself by his own strength, did follow after his master the
same way he went with a swarm of Bees sticking on his mane; intimating
by that prodigy that tyrannical government which Dionysius affected over
the Galeotæ. In the Helvetian History we read, that in the year 1385,
when Leopoldus of Austria began to march towards Sempachum with his
army, a swarm of Bees flew to the town and there sate upon the tyles;
whereby the common people rightly foretold that some forain force was
marching towards them. So Virgil, in 7 Æneid:
The Bees flew buzzing through the liquid air:
And pitcht upon the top o’ th’ laurel tree;
When the Soothsayers saw this sight full rare,
They did foretell th’ approach of th’ enemie.
That which Herodotus, Pausanias, Dio Cassius, Plutarch, Julius Cæsar,
Julius Capitolinus, and other historians with greater observation then
reason have confirmed. Saon Acrephniensis, when he could by no means
finde the oracle Trophonius; Pausanias in his œticks saith he was lead
thither by a swarm of Bees. Moreover, Plutarch, Pausanias, Ælian, Alex.
Alexandrinus, Theocritus and Textor are authors that Jupiter Melitæus,
Hiero of Syracuse, Plato, Pindar, Apius Comatus, Xenophon, and last of
all Ambrose, when their nurses were absent, had honey dropt into their
mouths by Bees, and so were preserved.”[616]
In East Norfolk, England, if Bees swarm on rotten wood, it is considered
portentous of a death in the family.[617] This superstition is as old at
least as the time of Gay, for, among the signs that foreshadowed the
death of Blonzelind, it is mentioned:
Swarmed on a rotten stick the Bees I spy’d
Which erst I saw when Goody Dobson dy’d.[618]
In Ireland, the mere swarming of Bees is looked upon as prognosticating
a death in the family of the owner.
In parts of England it is believed, that if a swarm of Bees come to a
house, and are not claimed by their owner, there will be a death in the
family that hives them.[619]
It is a very ancient superstition that Bees, by their acute sense of
smell, quickly detect an unchaste woman, and strive to make her infamy
known by stinging her immediately. In a pastoral of Theocritus, the
shepherd in a pleasant mood tells Venus to go away to Anchises to be
well stung by Bees for her lewd behavior.
Now go thy way to Ida mount--
Go to Anchises now,
Where mighty oaks, where banks along
Of square Cypirus grow,
Where hives and hollow trunks of trees,
With honey sweet abound,
Where all the place with humming noise
Of busie Bees resound.
Incontinence in men, as well as unchastity in women, was thought to be
punished by these little insects. Thus in the lines of Pindarus:
Thou painful Bee, thou pretty creature,
Who honey-combs six angled, as the be,
With feet doest frame, false Phœcus and impure,
With sting has prickt for his lewd villany.[620]
Pliny says: “Certain it is, that if a menstruous woman do no more but
touch a Bee-hive, all the Bees will be gone and never more come to it
again.”[621]
In Western Pennsylvania, it is believed that Bees will invariably sting
red-haired persons as soon as they approach the hives.
It is a common opinion that Bees in rough and boisterous weather, and
particularly in a violent storm, carry a stone in their legs, in order
to preserve themselves by its weight against the power of the wind. Its
antiquity is also great, for in the writings of Plutarch we find an
instance of this remarkable wisdom. “The Bees of Candi,” says this
philosopher, “being about to double a point or cape lying into the sea,
which is much exposed to the winds, they ballase (ballast) themselves
with small grit or petty stones, for to be able to endure the weather,
and not be carried away against their wills with the winds through their
lightness otherwise.”[622]
Virgil, too, about a century earlier, mentions this curious notion in
the following lines:
And as when empty barks on billows float,
With sandy ballast sailors trim the boat;
So Bees bear gravel stones, whose poising weight
Steers through the whistling winds their steady flight.[623]
Swammerdam, who has noticed this belief of the ancients, makes the
following remarks: “But this, as Clutius justly observes, has not been
hitherto remarked by any Bee-keeper, nor indeed have I myself ever seen
it. Yet I should think that there may be some truth in this matter, and
probably a certain observation, which I shall presently mention, has
given rise to the story. There is a species of wild Bees not unlike the
smallest kind of the Humble-Bee, which, as they are accustomed to build
their nests near stone walls, and construct their habitations of stone
and clay, sometimes carry such large stones that it is scarcely credible
by what means so tender insects can sustain so great a load, and that
even flying while they are obliged also to support their own body.
Their nest by this means is often so heavy as to weigh one or two
pounds.”[624]
It was the general opinion of antiquity that Bees were produced from the
putrid bodies of cattle. Varro says they are called Βουγόναι by the
Greeks, because they arise from petrified bullocks. In another place he
mentions their rising from these putrid animals, and quotes the
authority of Archelaus, who says Bees proceed from bullocks, and wasps
from horses.[625] Virgil, however, is much more satisfactory, for he
gives us the recipe in all its details for producing these insects: