from the wings of the Death’s-head Moth, in flying through an apartment,
is productive of blindness to the visual organs on which it falls.[801]
There is a quaint superstition in England that the Death’s-head Moth has
been very common in Whitehall ever since the martyrdom of Charles
I.[802]
Illustrative of the tough texture of the skin with which many soft larvæ
are provided for protection, the following may be instanced: Bonnet
squeezed under water the caterpillar of the privet Hawk-moth, _Sphinx
ligustris_, till it was as flat and empty as the finger of a glove, yet
within an hour it became plump and lively as if nothing had
happened.[803]
The name Sphinx is applied to this genus of insects from a fancied
resemblance between the attitude assumed by the larvæ of several of the
larger species, when disturbed, and that of the Egyptian Sphinx.
Bombicidæ--Silk-worm Moths.
The notices of the cultivation of the mulberry and the rearing of
Silk-worms, found in Chinese works, have been industriously collected
and published by M. Julien, by order of the French government. From his
work it appears that credible notices of the culture of the tree and the
manufacture of silk are found as far back as B.C. 780; and in referring
its invention to the Empress Siling, or Yuenfi, wife of the Emperor
Hwangti, B.C. 2602 (Du Halde says 2698), the Chinese have shown their
belief of its still higher antiquity. The Shi King contains this
distich:
The legitimate wife of Hwangti, named Siling Shi,
began to rear Silk-worms:
At this period Hwangti invented the art of making clothing.
Du Halde says this invention raised the Empress to the rank of a
divinity, under the title of Spirit of the Silk-worm, and of the
Mulberry-tree.[804]
The Book of Rites contains a notice of the festival held in honor of
this art, which corresponds to that of plowing by the emperor. “In the
last month of spring, the young empress purified herself and offered
sacrifice to the goddess of Silk-worms. She went into the eastern fields
and collected mulberry-leaves. She forbade noble dames and the ladies of
statesmen adorning themselves, and excused her attendants from their
sewing and embroidery, in order that they might give all their care to
the rearing of Silk-worms.”[805]
The manufacture of silk has been known in India from time immemorial,
it being mentioned in the oldest Sanscrit books.[806] It is the opinion
of modern writers, however, that the culture of the Silk-worm passed
from China into India, thence through Persia, and then, after the lapse
of several centuries, into Europe. But long before this, wrought silk
had been introduced into Greece from Persia. This was effected by the
army of Alexander the Great, about the year 323 before Christ.
The Greeks fabled silk to have first been woven in the Island of Cos by
Pamphila, the daughter of Plateos.[807] Of its true origin they were, in
a great measure, ignorant, but seem to have been positive that it was
the work of an insect. Pausanias thus describes the animal and its
culture: “But the thread, from which the Ceres (an Ethiopian race) make
garments, is not produced from a tree, but is procured by the following
method: A worm is found in their country which the Greeks call _Seer_,
but the Ceres themselves, by a different name. This worm is twice as
large as a beetle, and, in other respects, resembles spiders which weave
under trees. It has, likewise, eight feet as well as the spider. The
Ceres rear these insects in houses adapted for this purpose both to
summer and winter. What these insects produce is a slender thread, which
is rolled round their feet. They feed them for four years on oatmeal;
and on the fifth (for they do not live beyond five years) they give them
a green reed to feed on: for this is the sweetest of all food to this
insect. It feeds, therefore, on this till it bursts through fullness,
and dies: after which, they draw from its bowels a great quantity of
thread.”[808]
Aristotle seems to have had a much clearer idea of the origin of silk,
for he says it was unwound from the _pupa_ (he does not expressly say
the _pupa_, but this we must suppose) of a large horned
caterpillar.[809] The _larva_ he means could not, however, be the common
Silk-worm, since it is rather small and without horns.
Pliny, who, most probably, obtained the most of his ideas from Pausanias
and Aristotle, was of opinion that silk was the produce of a worm which
built clay-nests and collected wax. At first these worms, he says,
assume the appearance of small butterflies with naked bodies, but soon
after, being unable to endure the cold, they throw out bristly hairs,
which assume quite a thick coat against the winter, by rubbing off the
down that covers the leaves, by the aid of the roughness of their feet.
This they compress into balls by carding it with their claws, and then
draw it out and hang it between the branches of the trees, making it
fine by combing it out, as it were: last of all, they take and roll it
round their body, thus forming a nest in which they are enveloped. It is
in this state that they are taken; after which they are placed in
earthen vessels in a warm place, and fed upon bran. A peculiar sort of
down soon shoots forth upon the body, on being clothed with which they
are sent to work upon another task.[810]
The first kinds of silk dresses worn by the Roman ladies were from the
Island of Cos, and, as Pliny says, were known by the name of _Coæ
vestes_.[811] These dresses, of which Pliny says in such high praise,
“that while they cover a woman, they at the same time reveal her
charms,” were indeed so fine as to be transparent, and were sometimes
dyed purple, and enriched with stripes of gold. They had their name from
the early reputation which Cos acquired by its manufacture of silk. But
silk was a very scarce article among the Romans for many ages, and so
highly prized as to be valued at its weight in gold. Vospicius informs
us that the Emperor Aurelian, who died A.D. 125, refused his empress a
robe of silk, which she earnestly solicited, merely on account of its
dearness. Galen, who lived about A.D. 173, speaks of the rarity of silk,
being nowhere then but at Rome, and there only among the rich.
Heliogabalus is said to have been the first Roman that wore a garment
entirely of silk.
We learn from Tacitus, that early in the reign of Tiberius, about A.D.
17, the Senate enacted “that men should not defile themselves by wearing
garments of silk.”[812] Pliny says, however, that in his time men had
become so degenerate as to not even feel ashamed to wear garments of
this material.[813]
The mode of producing and manufacturing silk was not known to Europe
until long after the Christian era, being first learned about the year
555 by two Persian monks, who, under the encouragement of the Emperor
Justinian, procured in India the eggs of the Silk-worm Moth, with which,
concealing them in hollow canes, they hastened to Constantinople. They
also brought with them instructions for hatching the eggs, rearing and
feeding the worms, and drawing, spinning, and working the silk.[814]
From Constantinople, the culture of the Silk-worm spread over Greece, so
that in less than five centuries that portion of this country, hitherto
called the Peloponnesus, changed its denomination into that of Morea,
from the immense plantations of the _Morus alba_, or white
mulberry.[815] Large manufactories were set up at Athens, Thebes, and
Corinth. The Venetians, soon after this, commencing a commerce with the
Grecians, supplied all the western parts of Europe with silks for many
centuries. Several kinds of modern silk manufactures, such as damasks,
velvets, satins, etc., were as yet unknown.
About the year 1130, Roger II., King of Sicily, having conquered the
Peloponnesus, transported the Silk-worms and such as cultivated them to
Palermo and to Calabria. Such was the success of the speculation in
Calabria, that it is doubtful whether, even at the present moment, it
does not produce more silk than the whole of the rest of Italy.[816]
By degrees the rest of Italy, as well as Spain, learned from the
Sicilians and Calabrians the management of Silk-worms and the working of
silk; and at length, during the wars of Charles VIII., in 1499, the
French acquired it, by right of neighborhood, and soon large plantations
of the mulberry were raised in Provence. Henry I. is reported to have
been the first French king who wore silk stockings. The invention,
however, originally came from Spain, whence silk stockings were brought
over to England to Henry VIII. and Edward VI.
It is stated, that at the celebration of the marriage between Margaret,
daughter of Henry III., and Alexander III. of Scotland, in the year
1251, a most extravagant display of magnificence was made by one
thousand English knights appearing in suits of silk. It appears also by
the 33d of Henry VI., cap. 5, that there was a company of silk-women in
England as early as the year 1455; but these were probably employed
rather in embroidering and making small haberdasheries, than in the
broad manufacture, which was not introduced till the year 1620.
Sir Thomas Gresham, in a letter to Sir William Cecil, Elizabeth’s great
minister, dated Antwerp, April 30th, 1560, says: “I have written into
Spain for silk hose both for you and my lady, your wife, to whom, it may
please you, I may be remembered.” These silk hose, of a black color,
were accordingly soon after sent by Gresham to Cecil.[817]
Hose were, in England, up to the time of Henry VIII., made out of
ordinary cloth: the King’s own were formed of yard-wide taffata. It was
only by chance that he might obtain a pair of silk hose from Spain. His
son, Edward VI., received as a present from Sir Thomas Gresham--Stow
speaks of it as a great present--“a pair of long Spanish silk
stockings.” For some years longer, silk stockings continued to be a
great rarity. “In the second year of Queen Elizabeth,” says Stow, “her
silk-woman, Mistress Montague, presented her Majesty with a pair of
black knit-silk stockings for a New-Year’s gift; the which, after a few
days’ wearing, pleased her Highness so well, that she sent for Mistress
Montague, and asked her where she had them, and if she could help her to
any more; who answered, saying, ‘I made them very carefully, of purpose
only for your Majesty, and, seeing these please you so well, I will
presently set more in hand.’ ‘Do so,’ quoth the Queen, ‘for indeed I
like silk stockings so well, because they are pleasant, fine, and
delicate, that henceforth I will wear no more cloth stockings.’ And
from that time to her death the Queen never wore cloth hose, but only
silk stockings.”[818]
James I., while King of Scotland, is said to have once written to the
Earl of Mar, one of his friends, to borrow a pair of silk stockings, in
order to appear with becoming dignity before the English Ambassador;
concluding his letter with these words: “For ye would not, sure, that
your King should appear like a scrub before strangers.” This shows the
great rarity of silk articles at that period in Scotland.
In 1629, the manufacture of silk was become so considerable in London,
that the silk throwsters of the city and parts adjacent were
incorporated; and in 1661, this company employed above forty thousand
persons. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, contributed in
a great degree to promote the manufacture of this article; and the
invention of the silk-throwing machine at Derby, in 1719, added so much
to the reputation of English manufactures, that even in Italy, according
to Keysler, the English silks bore a higher price than the Italian.[819]
Rev. Stephen Olin tells us that the Mohammedans of Arabia will not allow
strangers to look into their cocooneries, on account of their
superstitious fear of the evil eye, of the influence of which the
Silk-worms are thought to be peculiarly susceptible.[820]
The silk of the nests of the social caterpillar of the _Bombyx Madrona_,
was an object of commerce in Mexico in the time of Montecusuma; and the
ancient Mexicans pasted together the interior layers, which may be
written upon without preparation, to form a white, glossy pasteboard.
Handkerchiefs are still manufactured of it in the Intendency of
Oaxaca.[821]
A complete nest of these Silk-worms, called in Brazil _sustillo_, was
sent by the Academy of Sciences and Natural History to the King of
Spain. The naturalist, Don Antonio Pineda, sent also a piece of this
natural silk paper, measuring a yard and a half, of an elliptical shape,
which, however, is peculiar to them all.[822]
The Chinese fix on rings with threads the females of two species of
wild _Bombyx_, whose caterpillars produce silk, and place these insects
on a tree, or on some body situated in the open air, to allow the males,
guided by their scent, to visit them.[823]
“The manner of the Chinese is,” we read in Purchas’s Pilgrims, “in the
Spring time to revive the Silke-worms (that lye dead all the Winter) by
laying them in the warme sunne, and (to hasten their quickening, that
they may sooner goe to worke) to put them into bagges, and so hang them
under their childrens armes.”[824]
In China, the pupæ of the Silk-worms after the silk is wound off, and
the larvæ of a species of Sphinx-moth, furnish articles for the table,
and are considered delicacies.[825] The natives of Madagascar, who eat
all kinds of insects, consider also Silk-worms a great luxury.[826]
Aldrovandus states that the German soldiers sometimes fry and eat
Silk-worms.[827]
Dr. James says: “Silk-worms dried, and reduced to a powder, are, by
some, applied to the crown of the head for removing vertigos and
convulsions. The silk, and case or coat, are of a due temperament
between heat and cold, and corroborate and recruit the vital, natural,
and animal spirits.”[828] The cocoons are also the basis of Goddard’s
_Drops_, and enter into several other compositions, such as the
_Confectio de Hyacintho_, when made in the best manner.[829]
With respect to the coloring of silk, we find in “Tseën Tse Wan,” or
thousand character classic, a work that has been a school-book in China
for the last 1200 years, that an ancient sage by the name of Mih, seeing
the white silk colored, wept on account of its original purity being
destroyed.[830]
Some of the eggs of a wild species of Silk-worm being sent overland from
China to Paris, proved a source of considerable anxiety to different
parties who received them during the transit, the instructions on the
box, instead of simply stating that it contained the eggs of the _wild_
Silk-worm Moth, was couched in the following manner by the French savant
who forwarded them: “Must be kept far from the engines; this box
contains _savage_ worms.”[831]
About twenty-five years ago, during a mania for rearing Silk-worms, to
meet the demand for the eggs of these insects, fish-spawn was
distributed throughout the country. The humbug was quite as successful
as it was curious.
It has been said that the search after the “Golden Fleece” may be
ascribed to the desire to obtain silk.[832]
As a protection against rifle-balls, the Chinese, who were engaged in
the rebellion of 1853, state that they wore dresses thickly padded with
floss silk; they said that while the ball had a twist in it, revolving
in its course, it caught up the silk and fastened itself in the garment.
One man declared that he took out six so caught, in one day, after a
severe fight. They said the dress was of more use within a hundred yards
than at long range, when the ball had lost its revolving motion.[833]
Vaucanson, the inventor of the famous “automaton duck,” to revenge
himself upon the silk-weavers of Lyons, who had stoned him because he
attempted to simplify the ordinary loom, is said to have invented a loom
on which a donkey worked silken cloth.[834]
The following curious Welsh epigram on the Silk-worm is composed
entirely of vowels, and can be recited without closing or moving lips or
teeth:
O’i wiw wy i ê â, a’i weuaw
O’i wyau y weua;
E’ weua ei wî aia’,
A’i weuau yw ieuau iâ.
I perish by my art; dig mine own grave;
I spin the thread of life; my death I weave.[835]
Arctiidæ--Wooly-bear Moths.
In 1783, the larvæ of the Moth, _Arctia chrysorrhœa_, were so
destructive in the neighborhood of London that subscriptions were opened
to employ the poor in cutting off and collecting the webs; and it is
asserted that not less than eighty bushels were collected and burnt in
one day in the parish of Clapham. And even in some places prayers were
offered up in the churches to avert the calamities of which they were
supposed by the ignorant to be the forerunner.[836]
If a caterpillar spins its cocoon in a house, it foretells its
desolation by death; if in your clothes, it warns you you will wear a
shroud before the year is out. This superstition obtains in the Middle
States, Virginia, and Maryland.
If Moths, flying in a candle, put it out, it forebodes a calamity
amounting to almost death. This superstition is pretty general.
Why Moths fly in a candle: Kempfer tells us, there is found in Japan an
insect, which, by reason of its incomparable beauty, is kept by the
Japanese ladies among the curiosities of their toilets. He calls it a
Night-fly, and describes it as being “about a finger long, slender,
round-bodied, with four wings, two of which are transparent and hid
under a pair of others, which are shining as it were polished, and most
curiously adorned with blue and golden lines and spots.” The following
little fable, which accounts so beautifully for the flying of Moths in a
candle, owes its origin to the unparalleled beauty of this insect, and
is well worthy of being preserved: The Japanese say that all other
Night-flies (Moths, etc.) fall in love with this particular one, who, to
get rid of their importunities, maliciously bids them, under the
pretense of trying their constancy, to go and bring to her fire. And the
blind lovers, scrupling not to obey her command, fly to the nearest fire
or candle, in which they never fail to burn themselves to death.[837]
The following verses, embodying the above fable (except in several minor
particulars) are from the pen of Mrs. A. L. Ruter Dufour:
One summer night, says a legend old,
A Moth a Firefly sought to woo:
“Oh, wed me, I pray, thou bright star-child,
To win thee there’s nothing I’d dare not do.”
“If thou art sincere,” the Firefly cried,
“Go--bring me a light that will equal my own;
Not until then will I deign be thy bride;”--
Undaunted the Moth heard her mocking tone.
Afar he beheld a brilliant torch,
Forward he dashed, on rapid wing,
Into the light to bear it hence;--
When he fell a scorched and blighted thing.--
Still ever the Moths in hope to win,
Unheeding the lesson, the gay Firefly,
Dash, reckless, the dazzling torch within,
And, vainly striving, fall and die!
WASHINGTON, D. C., June 24, 1864.
Moufet says: “Our North, as well as our West countrymen, call it (the
Moth, _Phalaina_) _Saule_, _i.e._ _Psychen, Animam_, the soul; because
some silly people in old time did fancy that the souls of the dead did
fly about in the night seeking light.”[838] “Pliny commends a goat’s
liver to drive them away, yet he shews not the means to use it.”[839]
One of the most highly prized curiosities in the collection of Horace
Walpole, was the silver bell with which the popes used to curse the
caterpillars. This bell was the work of Benvenuto Cellini, one of the
most extraordinary men of his extraordinary age, and the relievos on it
representing caterpillars, butterflies, and other insects, are said to
have been wonderfully executed.[840]
In Purchas’s Pilgrims, we read of worms being sprinkled with holy water
to kill them.[841]
Apuleius says, that if you take the caterpillars from another garden,
and boil them in water with anethum, and let them cool, and besprinkle
the herbs, you will destroy the existing caterpillars.[842]
Pliny says, that “if a woman having a catamenia strips herself naked,
and walks round a field of wheat, the caterpillars, worms, beetles, and
other vermin, will fall off the ears of the grain!” This important
discovery, according to Metrodurus of Scepsos, was first made in
Cappadocia; where, in consequence of such multitudes of “Cantharides”
being found to breed there, it was the practice for women to walk
through the middle of the fields with their garments tucked up above the
thighs.[843] Columella[844] has described this practice in verse, and
Ælian[845] also mentions it. Pliny says further that in other places,
again, it is the usage of women to go barefoot, with the hair disheveled
and the girdle loose: due precaution, however, he seriously observes,
must be taken that this is not done at sunrise, for if so the crop will
wither and dry up.[846] Apuleius,[847] Columella,[848] and
Palladius[849] relate the same story. Constantinus, likewise, whose
verses, as translated in Moufet’s Theater of Insects, are as follows:
But if against this plague no art prevail,
The Trojan arts will do’t, when others fail.
A woman barefoot with her hair untied,
And naked breasts must walk as if she cried,
And after Venus’ sports she must surround
Ten times, the garden beds and orchard ground.
When she hath done, ’tis wonderful to see,
The caterpillars fall off from the tree,
As fast as drops of rain, when with a crook,
For acorns or apples the tree is shook.[850]
This remarkable superstitious remedy for destroying caterpillars was
frequently practiced by the Indians of America. Schoolcraft, treating of
the peculiar superstitions connected with the menstrual lodge of these
people, says:
“This superstition does not alone exert a malign influence, or spell, on
the human species. Its ominous power, or charm, is equally effective on
the animate creation, at least on those species which are known to
depredate on their little fields and gardens. To cast a protective spell
around these, and secure the fields against vermin, insects, the
sciurus, and other species, as well as to protect the crops against
blight, the mother of the family chooses a suitable hour at night, when
the children are at rest and the sky is overcast, and having completely
divested herself of her garments, trails her _machecota_ behind her, and
performs the circuit of the little field.”[851]
The fat of bears, says Topsel, “some use superstitiously beaten with
oil, wherewith they anoynt their grape-sickles when they go to vintage,
perswading themselves that if nobody know thereof, their tender
vine-branches shall never be consumed by caterpillars. Others attribute
this to the vertue of bears’ blood.”[852]
Nicander used “a caterpillar to procure sleep: for so he writes; and
Hieremias Martius thus translates him:
Stamp but with oyl those worms that eat the leaves,
Whose backs are painted with a greenish hue,
Anoint your body with ’t, and whilst that cleaves,
You shall with gentle sleep bid cares adieu.”[853]
Of a caterpillar that feeds upon cabbage leaves, the _Eruca officinalis_
of Schroder, Dr. James says: “Bruised, or a powder of them, raise a
blister like cantharides, and take off the skin. Moufet says, they will
cause the teeth to fall out of their sockets, and Hippocrates writes,
that they are good for a Quinsey.”[854]
Psychidæ--Wood-carrying Moth, etc.
The larvæ of the Wood-carrying Moth (of the genus _Oiketicus_, or
_Eumeta_, Wlk.) of Ceylon, surround themselves with cases made of stems
of leaves, and thorns or pieces of twigs bound together by threads,
till the whole resembles a miniature Roman fasces; in fact, an African
species of these insects has obtained the name of “Lictor.” The Germans
have denominated the group _Sackträger_, and the Singhalese call them
Darra-kattea or “billets of fire-wood,” and regard the inmates, Tennent
says, as human beings, who, as a punishment for stealing wood in some
former state of existence, have been condemned to undergo a
metempsychosis under the form of these insects.[855]
Noctuidæ--Antler-moth, Cut-worm, etc.