in California; and there, it seems, according to Rev. Walter Colton,
they are sometimes made the ministers of justice. A rogue had stolen a
bag of gold from a digger in the mines, and hid it. Neither threats nor
persuasions could induce him to reveal the place of its concealment. He
was at last sentenced to a hundred lashes, and then informed that he
would be let off with thirty, provided he would tell what he had done
with the gold; but he refused. The thirty lashes were administered, but
he was still stubborn as a mule. He was then stripped naked, and tied to
a tree. The mosquitoes with their long bills went at him, and in less
than three hours he was covered with blood. Writhing and trembling from
head to foot with exquisite torture, he exclaimed, “Untie me, untie me,
and I will tell where it is.” “Tell first,” was the reply. So he told
where it might be found. Then some of the party with wisps kept off the
still hungry mosquitoes, while others went where the culprit directed,
and recovered the bag of gold. He was then untied, washed with cold
water, and helped to his clothes, while he muttered, as if talking to
himself, “I couldn’t stand that anyhow.”[953]
The largest kind of mosquito in the valley of the lower Mississippi is
called the “Gallinipper.” It is peculiarly described, by the boatmen, to
be as large as a goose, and that it flies about at night with a brickbat
under its wings with which it sharpens its “sting.”
They tell a good story to show the superiority of the Gallinipper, over
the ordinary Mosquito, in this wise. Some fellow made a bet that, for a
certain length of time, he could stand the stings of the mosquitoes
inflicted upon his bare back while he lay on his face. He stripped
himself for the ordeal, and was bearing it manfully, when some
mischievous spectator threw a live coal of fire on him. He winced, and,
looking up by way of protest, exclaimed, “I bar (debar) the
Gallinipper.”
The Culicidæ, say Kirby and Spence, like other conquerors who have been
the torment of the human race, have attained to fame, and have given
their names to bays, towns, and even to considerable territories; and
instance Mosquito Bay in St. Christopher’s; Mosquito, a town in the
Island of Cuba; and the Mosquito Shore of Central America.[954]
Democritus says: “Horse-hair, stretched through the door, and through
the middle of the house, destroys Gnats.”[955]
St. Macarius, Alban Butler says, was a confectioner of Alexandria, who,
in the flower of his age, spent upwards of sixty years in the deserts in
labor, penance, and contemplation. “Our Saint,” continues Butler,
“happened one day to inadvertently kill a Gnat that was biting him in
his cell; reflecting that he had lost the opportunity of suffering that
mortification, he hastened from the cell for the marshes of Scete, which
abound with great flies, whose stings pierce even wild boars. There he
continued six months, exposed to those ravaging insects; and to such a
degree was his whole body disfigured by them with sores and swellings,
that when he returned he was only to be known by his voice.”[956]
In the old English translation of the Bible, the observation of our
Saviour to the Pharisees, “Ye blind guides, which strain _at_ a Gnat,
and swallow a camel,” is rendered “which strain _out_ a Gnat,” and
Bishop Pearce observes that this is conformable to the sense of the
passage. An allusion is made to the custom which prevailed in Oriental
countries of passing their wine and other liquors through a strainer,
that no Gnats or flies might get into the cup. In the Fragments to
Calmet, we are informed that there is a modern Arabic proverb to this
effect, “He swallowed an elephant, but was strangled by a fly.”[957]
Tipulidæ--Crane-flies.
The larvæ of a species of Agaric-Gnat (_Mycetophila_) live in society,
and emigrate in files in a very soldier-like manner. First goes one,
next follow two, then three, etc., so as to exhibit a singular
serpentine appearance. The common people of Germany call this file
_heerwurm_, and, it is said, view them with great dread, regarding them
as ominous of war.[958]
Maupertuis, in describing his ascent to Mount Pulinga, in Lapland, says:
“They had to fell a whole wood of large trees, and the Flies (most
probably _Tipulidæ_) attack’d ’em with that fury, that the very
soldiers, tho’ harden’d to the greatest fatigues, were obliged to rap up
their faces, or cover them with tar. These insects poison’d their
victuals, for no sooner was a dish serv’d, but it was quite covered with
them.”[959] Maupertuis, in another place, says: “These Flies make
Lapland less tolerable in the summer than the cold does in the
winter.”[960] The severity with which the Tipulidæ torment the
Laplanders is attested also by Acerby,[961] Linnæus,[962] De Geer,[963]
and Reaumur.[964]
Muscidæ--Flies.
Among the instances recorded of Flies appearing in immense numbers, the
following are the most remarkable:
“When the Creole frigate was lying in the outer roads of Buenos Ayres,
in 1819, at a distance of six miles from the land, her decks and rigging
were suddenly covered with thousands of Flies and grains of sand. The
sides of the vessel had just received a fresh coat of paint, to which
the insects adhered in such numbers as to spot and disfigure the vessel,
and to render it necessary partially to renew the paint. Capt. W. H.
Smyth was obliged to repaint his vessel, the Adventure, in the
Mediterranean, from the same cause. He was on his way from Malta to
Tripoli, when a southern wind blowing from the coast of Africa, then one
hundred miles distant, drove such myriads of Flies upon the fresh paint
that not the smallest point was left unoccupied by the insects.”[965]
“In May, 1699, at Kerton,” records Mrs. Thoresby, p. 15, “in
Lincolnshire, the sky seemed to darken north-westward at a little
distance from the town, as though it had been a shower of hailstones or
snow; but when it came near the town, it appeared to be a prodigious
swarm of Flies, which went with such a force toward the south-east that
persons were forced to turn their backs of them.”[966]
On the morning of the 17th of September, 1831, a small dipterous insect,
belonging to Meigen’s genus _Chlorops_, and nearly allied to, if not
identical with, his _C. læta_, appeared suddenly, and in such immense
quantities, in one of the upper rooms of the Provost’s Lodge, in King’s
College, Cambridge, that the greater part of the ceiling toward the
window of the room was so thickly covered as not to be visible. They
entered by a window looking due north, while the wind was blowing
steadily N. N. W. So it appears they came from the direction of the
River Cam, or rather came with its current.[967]
In the summer of 1834, which season was remarkable in England for its
swarms and shoals of insects, the air was constantly filled, says a
writer in The Mirror, with millions of small delicate Flies, and the sea
in many places, particularly on the Norfolk coasts, was perfectly
blackened by the amazing shoals. The length of these masses was not
determined; but they were, it is asserted, at least a league broad. It
is said the oldest fishermen of those seas never remembered having seen
or heard of such a phenomenon.[968]
Capt. Dampier calls the natives of New Holland the “poor winking people
of New Holland,” and concludes his description of them with the
following observations: “Their eyelids are always half closed, to keep
the Flies out of their eyes, they being so troublesome here that no
fanning will keep them from coming to one’s face; and without the
assistance of both hands to keep them off they will creep into one’s
nostrils, and mouth, too, if the lips are not shut very close. So that
from their infancy, being thus annoyed with these insects, they do never
open their eyes as other people, and therefore they cannot see far,
unless they hold up their heads, as if they were looking at something
over them.”[969]
In a house at Zaffraan-craal, Dr. Sparrman suffered so much from the
common House-fly, _Musca domestica_, which, in the south of Africa,
frequently appears in such prodigious numbers as to cover almost
entirely the walls and ceilings, that, as he asserts, it was impossible
for him to keep within doors for any length of time. To get rid of these
troublesome pests, the natives resort to a very ingenious contrivance.
It is thus related by the above-mentioned traveler: “Bunches of herbs
are hung up all over the ceiling, on which the Flies settle in great
numbers; a person then takes a linen net or bag, of a considerable
depth, fixed to a long handle, and, inclosing in it every bunch, shakes
it about, so that the Flies fall down to the bottom of the bag: when,
after several applications of it in this manner, they are killed by a
pint or a quart at a time, by dipping the bag into scalding hot
water.”[970]
Rhasis, Avicen, and Albertus say: “Bury the tail of a wolf in the house,
and the Flies will not come into it.”[971]
Berytius says: “Flies will never rest on dumb animals if they are
rubbed with the fat of a lion.”[972]
Pliny says: “At Rome yee shall not have a Flie or dog that will enter
into the chappell of Hercules standing in the beast market.”[973]
Plutarch, in the Eighth Book of his Symposiaques, learnedly discourses
upon the tamableness of the Fly. His opinion is that it cannot be
tamed.[974]
Moufet, in his Theater of Insects, says: “Many ways doth nature also by
Flies play with the fancies of men in dreams, if we may credit
Apomasaris in his Apotelesms. For the Indians, Persians, and Ægyptians
do teach, that if Flies appear to us in our sleep, it doth signifie an
herauld at arms, or an approaching disease. If a general of an army, or
a chief commander, dream that at such or such a place he should see a
great company of Flies, in that very place, wherever it shall be, there
he shall be in anguish and grief for his soldiers that are slain, his
army routed, and the victory lost. If a mean or ordinary man dream the
like, he shall fall into a violent fever, which likely may cost him his
life. If a man dream in his sleep that Flies went into his mouth or
nostrils, he is to expect with great sorrow and grief imminent
destruction from his enemies.”[975]
In an English North country chap-book, entitled the Royal Dream-book, we
find: “To dream of Flies or other vermin, denotes enemies of all
sorts.”[976]
“When we see,” says Hollingshed, “a great number of Flies in a yeare, we
naturallie iudge it like to be a great plague.”[977]
Among the deep-sea fishermen of Greenock (Scotland), there is a most
comical idea that if a Fly falls into a glass from which any one has
been drinking, or is about to drink, it is considered a sure omen of
good luck to the drinker, and is always noticed as such by the
company.[978] Has this any connection with our saying of “taking a
glass with a _fly_ in it?”
If Flies die in great numbers in a house, it is believed by the common
people to be a sure sign of death to some one in the family occupying
it; if throughout the country, an omen of general pestilence. It is
positively asserted that Flies always die before the breaking out of the
cholera, and believed that they die of this disease.
Moufet, in his Theater of Insects, says: “When the Flies bite harder
than ordinary, making at the face and eyes of men, they foretell rain or
wet weather, from whence Politian hath it:
Thirsty for blood the Fly returns,
And with his sting the skin he burns.
Perhaps before rain they are most hungry, and therefore, to asswage
their hunger, do more diligently seek after their food. This also is to
be observed, that a little before a showre or a storme comes, the Flies
descend from the upper region of the air to the lowest, and do fly, as
it were, on the very surface of the earth. Moreover, if you see them
very busie about sweet-meats or unguents, you may know that it will
presently be a showre. But if they be in all places many and numerous,
and shall so continue long (if Alexander Benedict and Johannes
Damascenus say true), they foretell a plague or pestilence, because so
many of them could not be bred of a little putrefaction of the
air.”[979] Elsewhere Moufet states: “Neither are Flies begotten of dung
only, but of any other filthy matter putrefied by heat in the summer
time, and after the same way spoken of before, as Grapaldus and
Lonicerus have very well noted.”[980]
Willsford, in his Nature’s Secrets, p. 135, says: “Flies in the spring
or summer season, if they grow busier or blinder than at other times, or
that they are observed to shroud themselves in warm places, expect then
quickly to follow either hail, cold storms of rain, or very much wet
weather; and if these little creatures are noted early in autumn to
repair into their winter quarters, it presages frosty mornings, cold
storms, with the approach of hoary winter. Atomes of Flies swarming
together, and sporting themselves in the sunbeams, is a good omen of
fair weather.”[981]
In Gayton’s Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixot, 1654, p. 99, speaking of
Sancho Panza’s having converted a cassock into a wallet, our pleasant
annotator observes: “It was serviceable, after this greasie use, for
nothing but to preach at a carnivale or Shrove Tuesday, and to tosse
Pancakes in after the exercise; or else, if it could have been
conveighed thither, nothing more proper for a man that preaches the
Cook’s sermon at Oxford, when that plump society rides upon their
governour’s horses to fetch in the Enemie, the Flie.” That there was
such a custom at Oxford, let Peshall, in his history of that city, be a
voucher, who, speaking of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, p. 280, says: “To
this Hospital cooks from Oxford flocked, bringing in on Whitsun-week the
Fly.” Aubrey saw this ceremony performed in 1642. He adds: “On
Michaelmas-day, they rode thither again to carry the Fly away.”[982]
Plutarch, in his disquisition on the Art of Discerning a Flatterer from
a Friend, makes the following curious comparison: “The Gad-Flie (as they
say) which useth to plague bulles and oxen, setteth about their eares,
and so doth the tick deal by dogges: after the same manner, flatterers
take hold of ambitious mens eares, and possesse them with praises; and
being once set fast there, hardly are they to be removed and chased
away.”[983]
Plautus twice compares envious and inquisitive persons to Flies.[984]
In a narrative of unheard-of Popish cruelties toward Protestants beyond
Seas, printed in 1680, we find the insinuating detectives of the Spanish
Inquisition under the name of Flies.[985]
Flies are mentioned somewhere in Lyndwood as the emblem of unclean
thoughts.[986]
Flies were driven away when a woman was in labor, for fear she should
bring forth a daughter.[987]
Flies are found represented in the pottery of the ancient
Egyptians.[988]
Flies (_Cuspi_) were sacrificed to the Sun by the ancient
Peruvians.[989]
“To let a Flee (Fly) stick i’ the wa’” is, in Scotland, not to speak on
some particular topic, to pass it over without remark.[990]
“Certes, a strange thing it is of these Flies,” says Pliny, “which are
taken to be as senselesse and witlesse creatures, yea, and of as little
capacity and understanding as any other whatsoever: and yet at the
solemne games and plaies holden every fifth yeare at Olympia, no sooner
is the bull sacrificed there to the Idoll or god of the Flies called
Myiodes, but a man shall see (a wonderful thing to tell) infinit
thousand of flies depart out of that territorie by flights, as it were
thick clouds.”[991]
This Myiodes or Maagrus, the “Fly-catcher,” was the name of a hero,
invoked at Aliphera, at the festivals of Athena, as the protector
against Flies. It was also a surname of Hercules.
The following rendering of the second verse of the first chapter of the
Second Book of Kings, by Josephus, contains an allusion to the worship
of Baalzebub under the form of a Fly: “Now it happened that _Ahaziah_,
as he was coming down from the top of his house, fell down from it, and
in his sickness sent to the _Fly_ (Baalzebub), which was the god of
_Ekron_, for that was this god’s name, to enquire about his
recovery.”[992]
With reference to this worship, we read in Purchas’s Pilgrims: “At
Accaron was worshipped _Baalzebub_, that is, the Lord of the Flies,
either of contempt of his idolatrie, so called; or rather of the
multitude of Flies, which attended the multitude of his sacrifices, when
from the sacrifices at the Temple of Jerusalem, as some say, they were
wholly free: or for that hee was their Larder-god (as the Roman
_Hercules_) to drive away flies: or for that from a forme of a Flie, in
which he was worshipped.... But for Beelzebub, he was their _Æsculapius_
or Physicke god, as appeareth by Ahaziah who sent to consult with him in
his sickness. And perhaps from this cause the blaspheming Pharisies,
rather applyed the name of this then any other Idoll to our blessed
Saviour (Math. x. 25) whom they saw indeed to performe miraculous cures,
which superstition had conceived of _Baalzebub_: and if any thing were
done by that Idoll, it could by no other cause bee effected but by the
Devill, as tending (like the popish miracles) to the confirmation of
Idolatrie.”[993]
This god of the Flies was so called, thinks Whiston, as was Jove among
the Greeks, from his supposed power over Flies, in driving them away
from the flesh of their sacrifices, which otherwise would have been very
troublesome to them.[994]
It has been conjectured that the Fly, under which Baalzebub was
represented, was the Tumble-bug, _Scarabæus pilluarius_; in which
case, says Dr. Smith, Baalzebub and Beelzebub might be used
indifferently.[995]
“Urspergensis saith that the Devil did very frequently appear in the
form of a Fly; whence it was that some of the heathens called their
familiar spirit _Musca_ or Fly: perchance alluding to that of Plautus:
Hic pol musca est, mi pater,
Sive profanum, sive publicum, nil clam illum haberi potest:
Quin adsit ibi illico, et rem omnem tenet.--
This man, O my father, is a Fly, nothing can be concealed from him, be
it secret or publick, he is presently there, and knowes all the
matter.”[996]
Loke, the deceiver of the gods, is fabled in the Northern Mythology, to
have metamorphosed himself into a Fly: and demons, in the shape of
Flies, were kept imprisoned by the Finlanders, to be let loose on men
and beasts.[997]
In Scotland, a tutelary Fly, believed immortal, presided over a fountain
in the county of Banff: and here also a large blue Fly, resting on the
bark of trees, was distinguished as a witch.[998]
Among the games and plays of the ancient Greeks was the Χαλκη Μυῖα, or
Brazen Fly:--a variety of blind-man’s-buff, in which a boy having his
eyes bound with a fillet, went groping round, calling out, “I am seeking
the Brazen Fly.” His companions replied, “You may seek, but you will not
find it”--at the same time striking him with cords made of the inner
bark of the papyros; and thus they proceeded till one of them was
taken.[999]
This is most probably an allusion to some species of Fly of a bronze
color which is most difficult to catch, as, for instance, the little fly
found in summer beneath arbors, apparently standing motionless in the
air.
Petrus Ramus tells us of an iron Fly, made by Regiomontanus, a famous
mathematician of Nuremberg, which, at a feast, to which he had invited
his familiar friends, flew forth from his hand, and taking a round,
returned to his hand again, to the great astonishment of the beholders.
Du Bartas thus expresses this:
Once as this artist, more with mirth than meat,
Feasted some friends whom he esteemed great,
Forth from his hand an iron Fly flew out;
Which having flown a perfect round-about,
With weary wings return’d unto her master:
And as judicious on his arm he plac’d her.
O! wit divine, that in the narrow womb
Of a small fly, could find sufficient room
For all those springs, wheels, counterpoise and chains,
Which stood instead of life, and blood, and veins![1000]
We find also in a work bearing the title “Apologie pour les Grands
Homines Accusés de Magie,” that “Jean de Montroyal presented to the
Emperor Charles V. an iron Fly, which made a solemn circuit round its
inventor’s head, and then reposed from its fatigue on his
arm.”--Probably the same automaton, since Regiomontanus and Montroyal
are the same.
Such a Fly as the above is rather extraordinary, yet I have something
better to tell--still about a Fly.
Gervais, Chancellor to the Emperor Otho III., in his book entitled “Otia
Imperatoris,” informs us that “the sage Virgilius, Bishop of Naples,
made a brass Fly, which he placed on one of the city gates, and that
this mechanical Fly, trained like a shepherd’s dog, prevented any other
fly entering Naples; so much so, that during eight years the meat
exposed for sale in the market was never once tainted!”[1001]
“Varro affirmeth,” says Pliny, “that the heads of Flies applied fresh to
the bald place, is a convenient medicine for the said infirmity and
defect. Some use in this case the bloud of flies: others mingle their
ashes with the ashes of paper used in old time, or els of nuts; with
this proportion, that there be a third part only of the ashes of flies
to the rest, and herewith for ten days together rubb the bare places
where the hair is gone. Some there be againe, who temper and incorporat
togither the said ashes of Flies with the juice of colewort and
brest-milke: others take nothing thereto but honey.”[1002]
Mucianus, who was thrice consul, carried about him a living Fly, says
Pliny, wrapped in a piece of white linen, and strongly asserted that to
the use of this expedient he owed his preservation from
ophthalmia.[1003]
Ferdinand Mendez Pinto says: “In our travels with the ambassador of the
King of Bramaa to the Calaminham, we saw in a grot men of a sect of one
of their Saints, named Angemacur: these lived in deep holes, made in the
mider of the rock, according to the rule of their wretched order, eating
nothing but Flies, Ants, Scorpions, and Spiders, with the juice of a
certain herb, much like to sorrel.”[1004]
Says Moufet, in his Theater of Insects: “Plutarch, in his Artaxerxes,
relates that it was a law amongst a certain people, that whosoever
should be so bold as to laugh at and deride their lawes and
constitutions of state, was bound for twenty daies together in an open
chest naked, all besmeared with honey and milk, and so became a prey to
the Flies and Bees, afterward when the days were expired he was put into
a woman’s habit and thrown headlong down a mountain.... Of which kinde
of punishment also Suidas makes mention in his Epicurus. There was
likewise for greater offenders, a punishment of Boats, so called. For
that he that was convict of high treason, was clapt between two boats,
with his head, hands, and feet hanging out: for his drink he had milk
and honey powred down his throat, with which also his head and hands
were sprinkled, then being set against the sun, he drew to him abundance
of stinging Flies, and within being full of their worms, he putrefied by
little and little, and so died. Which kinde of examples of severity as
the ancients shewed to the guilty and criminous offenders; so on the
other side the Spaniards in the Indies, used to drive numbers of the
innocents out of their houses, as the custome is among them, naked, all
bedawbed with honey, and expose them in open air to the biting of most
cruel Flies.”[1005]
Mr. Henry Mayhew, in that part of his interesting work on London Labor
and London Poor devoted to the London Street-folk, has given us the
narratives of several “Catch-’em-Alive” sellers--a set of poor boys who
sell prepared papers for the purpose of catching Flies. He discovered,
as he relates, a colony of these “Catch-’em-alive” boys residing in
Pheasant-court, Gray’s-inn-lane. They were playing at “pitch-and-toss”
in the middle of the paved yard, and all were very willing to give him
their statements; indeed, the only difficulty he had was in making his
choice among the youths.
“Please, sir,” said one with teeth ribbed like celery, to him, “I’ve
been at it longer than him.”
“Please, sir, he ain’t been out this year with the papers,” said
another, who was hiding a handful of buttons behind his back.
“He’s been at shoe-blacking, sir; I’m the only reg’lar fly-boy,” shouted
a third, eating a piece of bread as dirty as London snow.