satire, by Poor Humphrey, will be read with a smile: “A notable
projector became notable by one project only, which was a certain
specific for the killing of fleas, and it was in form of a powder, and
sold in papers, with plain directions for use, as followeth: The flea
was to be held conveniently between the thumb and finger of the left
hand; and to the end of the trunk or proboscis, which protrudeth in the
flea, somewhat as the elephant’s doth, a very small quantity of the
powder was to be put from between the thumb and finger of the right
hand. And the deviser undertook, if any flea to whom his powder was so
administered should prove to have afterwards bitten a purchaser who used
it, then that purchaser should have another paper of the said powder
gratis. And it chanced that the first paper thereof was bought idly, as
it were, by an old woman, and she, without meaning to injure the
inventor, or his remedy, but, of her mere harmlessness, did innocently
ask him, whether, when she had caught the flea, and after she had got
it, as before described, if she should kill it with her nail it would
not be as well. Whereupon the ingenious inventor was so astonished by
the question, that, not knowing what to answer on the sudden occasion,
he said with truth to this effect, that without doubt her way would do,
too. And according to the belief of Poor Humphrey, there is not as yet
any device more certain or better for destroying a flea, when thou hast
captured him, than the ancient manner of the old woman’s, or instead
thereof, the drowning of him in fair water, if thou hast it by thee at
the time.”[1034]
The old English hunters report that foxes are full of Fleas, and they
tell the following queer story how they get rid of them: “The fox,” say
they, as recorded by Mouffet, “gathers some handfuls of wool from
thorns and briars, and wrapping it up, he holds it fast in his mouth,
then goes by degrees into a cold river, and dipping himself close by
little and little, when he finds that all the Fleas are crept so high as
his head for fear of drowning, and so for shelter crept into the wool,
he barks and spits out the wool, full of Fleas, and so very froliquely
being delivered from their molestation, he swims to land.”[1035]
Ramsay thus alludes to this story:
Then sure the lasses, and ilk gaping coof,
Wad rin about him, and had out their loof.
_M._ As fast as fleas skip to the tale of woo,
Whilk slee Tod Lowrie (the fox) hads without his mow,
When he to drown them, and his hips to cool,
In summer days slides backward in a pool.[1036]
Preceding this story, Mouffet makes the following observations: “The
lesser, leaner, and younger they are, the sharper they bite, the fat
ones being more inclined to tickle and play; and then are not the least
plague, especially when in greater numbers, since they molest men that
are sleeping, and trouble wearied and sick persons; from whom they
escape by skipping; for as soon as they find they are arraigned to die,
and feel the finger coming, on a sudden they are gone, and leap here and
there, and so escape the danger; but so soon as day breaks, they forsake
the bed. They then creep into the rough blankets, or hide themselves in
rushes and dust, lying in ambush for pigeons, hens, and other birds,
also for men and dogs, moles and mice, and vex such as passe by.”[1037]
It is frequently affirmed that asses are never troubled with Fleas or
other vermin; and, among the superstitious, it is said that it is all
owing to the riding of Christ upon one of these animals.[1038]
Willsford, in his Nature’s Secrets, printed 1658, p. 130, says: “The
little sable beast (called a _Flea_), if much thirsting after blood, it
argues rain.”[1039]
It is related that the Devil, teasing St. Domingo in the shape of a
Flea, skipped upon his book, when the saint fixed him as a mark where
he left off, and continued to use him so through the volume.[1040]
Fleas infesting beds were attributed to the envy of the Devil.[1041]
Giles Fletcher says that Iwan Yasilowich sent to the City of Moscow to
provide for him a measure full of Fleas for a medicine. They answered
that it was impossible, and if they could get them, yet they could not
measure them because of their leaping out. Upon which he set a mulct
upon the city of seven thousand rubles.[1042]
We read in Purchas’s Pilgrims that the Jews were not permitted to burn
Fleas in the flame of their lamps on Sabbath evenings.[1043]
The muscular power of the Flea is so great that it can leap to the
distance of two hundred times its own length, which will appear the more
surprising when we consider that a man, were he endowed with equal
strength and agility, would be able to leap between three and four
hundred yards. Aristophanes, in his usual licentious way, ridicules the
great Socrates for his pretended experiments on this great muscular
power:
_Disciple._ That were not lawful to reveal to strangers.
_Strepsiades._ Speak boldly then as to a fellow-student;
For therefore am I come.
_Disc._ Then I will speak;
But set it down among our mysteries.
It is a question put to Chærophon
By our great master Socrates to answer,
How many of his own lengths at a spring
A Flea can hop; for one by chance had skipp’d
Straight from the brow of Chærophon to th’ head
Of Socrates.
_Streps._ And how did then the sage
Contrive to measure this?
_Disc._ Most dext’rously.
He dipp’d the insect’s feet in melted wax,
Which hard’ning into slippers as it cool’d,
By these computed he the question’d space.
_Streps._ O Jupiter, what subtilty of thought![1044]
The witty Butler has also commemorated the same circumstance in his
justly celebrated poem of Hudibras:
How many scores a Flea will jump
Of his own length, from head to rump;
Which Socrates and Chærophon
In vain assay’d so long agon.
As illustrative of the strength of the Flea, the following facts may
also be given: We read in a note to Purchas’s Pilgrims that “one Marke
Scaliot, in London, made a lock and key and chain of forty-three links,
all which a Flea did draw, and weighed but a grain and a half.”[1045]
Mouffet, who also records this fact, says he had heard of another Flea
that was harnessed to a golden chariot, which it drew with the greatest
ease.[1046] Bingley tells us that Mr. Boverick, an ingenious watchmaker
in the Strand, exhibited some years ago a little ivory chaise with four
wheels, and all its proper apparatus, and the figure of a man sitting on
the box, all of which were drawn by a single Flea. The same mechanic
afterward constructed a minute landau, which opened and shut by springs,
with the figures of six horses harnessed to it, and of a coachman on the
box, a dog between his legs, four persons inside, two footmen behind it,
and a postillion riding on one of the fore horses, which were all easily
dragged along by a single Flea. He likewise had a chain of brass, about
two inches long, containing two hundred links, with a hook at one end
and a padlock and key at the other, which a Flea drew nimbly
along.[1047] At a fair of Charlton, in Kent, 1830, a man exhibited three
Fleas harnessed to a carriage in form of an omnibus, at least fifty
times their own bulk, which they pulled along with great ease; another
pair drew a chariot, and a single Flea a brass cannon. The exhibitor
showed the whole first through a magnifying glass, and then to the naked
eye; so that all were satisfied there was no deception.[1048] Latrielle
also mentions a Flea of a moderate size, which dragged a silver cannon,
mounted on wheels, that was twenty-four times its own weight, and which
being charged with gunpowder was fired off without the Flea appearing in
the least alarmed.[1049]
It is recorded in Purchas’s Pilgrims that an Egyptian artisan received a
garment of cloth of gold for binding a Flea in a chain.[1050]
The Flea is twice mentioned in the Bible, and in both cases David, in
speaking to Saul, applies it to himself as a term of humility.[1051]
A Prussian poet, quoted by Jaeger,[1052] gives us the song of a young
Flea who had emigrated to this country from Prussia, and thus expresses
his dissatisfaction to his sweetheart:
Kennst de nunmehr das Land, we Dorngestripp und Disteln blüh’n,
Im frost’gen Wald nur eckelhafte Tannenzapfen glüh’n,
Der Schierling tief, und hoch der Sumach steht,
Ein rauher Wind vom schwarzen Himmel weht;
Kennst du es wohl? O lass uns eilig zieh’n,
Und schnell zurück in unsre Hiemath flieh’n!
An English prose translation of which is: “Know’st thou now this
country, where only briars and thistles bloom; where ugly fur-nuts only
glow in the icy forest; where down in the vale the fetid hemlock grows,
and on the hills the poisonous sumach; where heavy winds blow from black
clouds over desolate lands? Dost thou not know of this country? Oh,
then, let us fly in haste and return to our own fatherland!”
“To send one away with a Flea in his ear,” is a very old English phrase,
meaning to dismiss one with a rebuke.[1053] “Flea-luggit” is the
Scottish--to be unsettled or confused.[1054]
There is a collection of poems called “La Puce des grands jours de
Poitiers”--the Flea of the carnival of Poitiers. The poems were begun by
the learned Pasquier, who edited the collection, upon a Flea which was
found one morning in the bosom of the famous Catherine des Roches.[1055]
During the winter of 1762, at Norwich, England, after a chilling storm
of snow and wind that had destroyed many lives, myriads of Fleas were
found skipping about on the snow.[1056]
To the Pulicidæ belongs also a native of the West Indies and South
America, the _Pulex penetrans_, variously named in the countries where
it is found, Chigoe, Jigger, Nigua, Tungua, and Pique. According to
Stedman, this “is a kind of small sand-flea, which gets in between the
skin and the flesh without being felt, and generally under the nails of
the toes, where, while it feeds, it keeps growing till it becomes of the
size of a pea, causing no further pain than a disagreeable itching. In
process of time, its operation appears in the form of a small bladder,
in which are deposited thousands of eggs, or nits, and which, if it
breaks, produce so many young Chigoes, which, in course of time, create
running ulcers, often of very dangerous consequence to the patient; so
much so, indeed, that I knew a soldier the soles of whose feet were
obliged to be cut away before he could recover; and some men have lost
their limbs by amputation--nay, even their lives--by having neglected in
time to root out these abominable vermin. The moment, therefore, that a
redness and itching more than usual are perceived, it is time to extract
the Chigoe that occasions them. This is done with a sharp-pointed
needle, taking care not to occasion unnecessary pain, and to prevent the
Chigoe from breaking in the wound. Tobacco ashes are put into the
orifice, by which in a little time the sore is perfectly healed.”[1057]
The female slaves are generally employed to extract these pests, which
they do with uncommon dexterity. Old Ligon tells us he had ten Chigoes
taken out of his feet in a morning “by the most unfortunate
Yarico,”[1058] whose tragical story is now so celebrated in prose and
verse. Mr. Southey says that many of the first settlers of Brazil,
before they knew the remedy to extract the Chigoes, lost their feet in
the most dreadful manner.[1059]
Walton, in his Present State of the Spanish Colonies, tells us of a
Capuchin friar, who carried away with him a colony of Chigoes in his
foot as a present to the Scientific Colleges in Europe; but,
unfortunately for himself and for science, the length of the voyage
produced mortification in his leg, that it became necessary to cut it
off to save the zealous missionary’s life, and the leg, with all its
inhabitants, were tumbled together into the sea.[1060]
Humboldt observes “that the whites born in the torrid zone walk barefoot
with impunity in the same apartment where a European, recently landed,
is exposed to the attack of this animal. The _Nigua_, therefore,
distinguishes what the most delicate chemical analysis could not
distinguish, the cellular membrane and blood of an European from those
of a Creole white.”[1061]
ORDER XI.
ANOPLEURA.
Pediculidæ--Lice.
At Hurdenburg, in Sweden, Mr. Hurst tells us the mode of choosing a
burgomaster is this: The persons eligible sit around, with their beards
upon a table; a Louse is then put in the middle of the table, and the
one, in whose beard this insect first takes cover, is the magistrate for
the ensuing year.[1062]
Respecting the revenue of Montecusuma, which consisted of the natural
products of the country, and what was produced by the industry of his
subjects, we find the following story in Torquemada: “During the abode
of Montecusuma among the Spaniards, in the palace of his father, Alonzo
de Ojeda one day espied in a certain apartment of the building a number
of small bags tied up. He imagined at first that they were filled with
gold dust, but on opening one of them, what was his astonishment to find
it quite full of Lice? Ojeda, greatly surprised at the discovery he had
made, immediately communicated what he had seen to Cortes, who then
asked Marina and Anguilar for some explanation. They informed him that
the Mexicans had such a sense of their duty to pay tribute to their
monarch, that the poorest and meanest of the inhabitants, if they
possessed nothing better to present to their king, daily cleaned their
persons, and saved all the Lice they caught, and that when they had a
good store of these, they laid them in bags at the feet of their
monarch.” Torquemada further remarks, that his reader might think these
bags were filled with small worms (gasanillos), and not with Lice; but
appeals to Alonzo de Ojeda, and another of Cortes’ soldiers, named
Alonzo de Mata, who were eye-witnesses of the fact.[1063]
Oviedo pretends to have observed that Lice, at the elevation of the
tropics, abandon the Spanish sailors that are going to the Indies, and
attack them again at the same point on their return. The same is
reported in Purchas’s Pilgrims.[1064] One of the supplementary writers
to Cuvier’s History of Insects says: “This is an observation that has
need of being corroborated by more certain testimonies than we are yet
in possession of. But, if true, there would be nothing in the fact very
surprising. A degree of considerable heat, and a more abundant
perspiration, might prove unfavorable to the propagation of the
_Pediculi corporis_. As their skin is more tender, the influence of the
air might prove detrimental to them in those burning climates.”[1065]
We read in Purchas’s Pilgrims, that “if Lice doe much annoy the natives
of Cambaia and Malabar, they call to them certain Religious and holy
men, after their account: and these Observants y will take upon them all
those Lice which the other can find, and put them on their head, there
to nourish them. But yet for all this lousie scruple, they stick not to
coozenage by falese weights, measures, and coyne, nor at usury and
lies.”[1066]
In a side-note to this curious passage, we find: “The like lousie trick
is reported in the Legend of S. _Francis_, and in the life of Ignatius,
of one of the Jesuitical pillars, by Moffæus.”
Steedman says of the Caffres, that “except an occasional plunge in a
river, they never wash themselves, and consequently their bodies are
covered with vermin. On a fine day their karosses are spread out in the
sun, and as their tormentors creep forth they are doomed to destruction.
It often happens that one Caffir performs for another the kind office of
collecting these insects, in which case he preserves the entomological
specimens, carefully delivering them to the person to whom they
originally appertained, supposing, according to their theory, that as
they derived their support from the blood of the man from whom they were
taken, should they be killed by another, the blood of his neighbor would
be in his possession, thus placing in his hands the power of some
superhuman influence.”[1067]
Kolben says the Hottentots eat the largest of the Lice with which they
swarm; and that if asked how they can devour such detestable vermin,
they plead the law of retaliation, and urge that it is no shame to eat
those who would eat them--“They suck our blood, and we devour ’em in
revenge.”[1068]
We are assured in Purchas’s Pilgrims, that Lice and “long wormes” were
sold for food in Mexico.[1069] From this ancient collection of Travels,
we learn that when the Indians of the Province of Cuena are infected
with Lice, “they dresse and cleanse one another; and they that exercise
this, are for the most part women, who eate all that they take, and have
herein (eating?) such dexterity by reason of their exercise, that our
own men cannot lightly attaine thereunto.”[1070]
The Budini, a people of Scythia, commonly feed upon Lice and other
vermin bred upon their bodies.[1071]
Mr. Wafer, in his description of the Isthmus of America, says: “The
natives have Lice in their Heads, which they feel out with their
Fingers, and eat as they catch them.”[1072] Dobrizhoffer also mentions
that Lice are eaten by the Indian women of South America.[1073]
The disgusting practice of eating these vermin is not confined to the
Hottentots, the Negroes of Western Africa, the Simiæ, and the American
Indians, for it has been observed to prevail among the beggars of Spain
and Portugal.[1074]
Schroder, in his History of Animals that are useful in Physic, says:
“Lice are swallowed by country people against the jaundice.”[1075] As a
specific against this disease, Beaumont and Fletcher thus allude to
them:
Die of the jaundice, yet have the cure about you: lice, large lice,
begot of your own dust and the heat of the brick kilns.[1076]
Lice were also made use of in cases of Atrophy, and Dioscorides says
they were employed in suppressions of urine, being introduced into the
canal of the urethra.[1077]
In the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1746, there is a curious letter on “a
certain _creature_, of rare and extraordinary qualities”--a Louse,
containing many humorous observations on this “_lover_ of the human
race,” and concluding with some queries as to its origin and
pedigree. “Was it,” the writer asks, “created within the six days
assigned by _Moses_ for the formation of all things? If so, where was
its habitation? We can hardly suppose that it was quartered on _Adam_
or his lady, the neatest, nicest pair (if we believe _John Milton_)
that ever joyned hands. And yet, as it disdained to graze the fields,
or lick the dust for sustenance, where else could it have had its
subsistence?”[1078]
In a modern account of Scotland, written by an English gentleman, and
printed in the year 1670, we find the following: “In that interval
between Adam and Moses, when the Scottish Chronicle commences, the
country was then baptized (and most think with the sign of the cross) by
the venerable name of Scotland, from Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh,
King of Egypt. Hence came the rise and name of these present
inhabitants, as their Chronicle informs us, and is not to be doubted of,
from divers considerable circumstances; the plagues of Egypt being
entailed upon them, that of Lice (being a judgment unrepealed) is an
ample testimony, these loving animals accompanied them from Egypt, and
remain with them to this day, never forsaking them (but as rats leave a
house) till they tumble into their graves.”[1079]
Linnæus, seemingly very anxious to become an apologist for the Lice,
gravely observes that they probably preserve children who are troubled
with them, from a variety of complaints to which they would be
liable![1080]
As an attempt toward discovering the intention of Providence in
permitting the frequency of these tormenting animals, the following
lines of Serenus may be given:
See nature, kindly provident ordain
Her gentle stimulants to harmless pain;
Lest Man, the slave of rest, should waste away
In torpid slumber life’s important day!
Of the horrible disease, Phthiriasis, occasioned by myriads of Lice,
_Pediculi_, and sometimes by Mites, _Acari_, and _Larvæ_ in general, I
shall but mention that the inhuman Pheretrina, Antiochus Epiphanes, the
Dictator Sylla, the two Herods, the Emperor Maximin, and Philip the
Second were among the number carried off by it.
Quintus Serenus speaks thus of the death of Sylla:
Great Sylla too the fatal scourge hath known;
Slain by a host far mightier than his own.
According to Pliny, Nits are destroyed by using dog’s fat, eating
serpents cooked like eels, or else taking their sloughs in drink.[1081]
In Leyden’s Notes to Complaynt of Scotland are recorded the following
few rhymes of the Gyre-carlin--the bug-bear of King James V.
The Mouse, the Louse, and Little Rede,
Were a’ to mak’ a gruel in a lead.
The two first associates desire Little Rede to go to the door, to “see
what he could see.” He declares that he saw the gyre-carlin coming,
With spade, and shool, and trowel,
To lick up a’ the gruel.
Upon which the party disperse:
The Louse to the claith,
And the Mouse to the wa’,
Little Rede behind the door,
And licket up a’.[1082]
ORDER XII.
ARACHNIDA.[1083]
Acaridæ--Mites.
The white spot on the back of a certain species of Wood-tic (_Acarus_)
is said to be the spot where the pin went through the body when Noah
pinned it in the Ark to keep it from troubling him.
Phalangidæ--Daddy-Long-legs.
A superstition obtains among our cow-boys that if a cow be lost, its
whereabouts may be learned by inquiring of the Daddy-Long-legs
(Phalangium), which points out the direction of the lost animal with one
of its fore legs.
In England, the Phalangium has been christened the Harvest-man, from a
superstitious belief that if it be killed there will be a bad
harvest.[1084]
Pedipalpi--Scorpions.
Concerning the generation of the Scorpion, Topsel, in his History of
Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, printed in 1658, treats as follows:
“Now, then, it followeth that we inquire about the manner of their
(Scorpions’) breed or generation, which I find to be double, as divers
authors have observed, one way is by putrefaction, and the other by
laying of egges, and both these ways are consonant to nature, for
Lacinius writeth that some creatures are generated only by propagation
of seed--such are men, vipers, whales, and the palm-tree; some again
only by putrefaction, as mice, Scorpions, Emmets, Spiders, purslain,
which, first of all, were produced by putrefaction, and since their
generation are conserved by the seed and egges of their own kinde. Now,
therefore, we will first of all speak of the generation of Scorpions by
putrefaction, and afterward by propagation.
“Pliny saith[1085] that when Sea-crabs dye, and their bodies are dried
upon the earth, when the sun entereth into Cancer and Scorpius, out of
the putrefaction thereof ariseth a Scorpion; and so out of the putrefied
body of the crefish burned arise Scorpions, which caused Ovid thus to
write:
Concava littoreo si demas brachia cancro,
Cætera supponas terræ, de parte sepulta
Scorpius exibit, caudaque minabitur unca.
And again:
Obrutus exemptis cancer tellure lacertis,
Scorpius exiguo tempore factus erit.
In English thus:
If that the arms you take from Sea-crab-fish,
And put the rest in earth till all consumed be,
Out of the buried part a Scorpion will arise,
With hooked tayl doth threaten for to hurt thee.
“And therefore it is reported by Ælianus that about Estamenus, in India,
there are abundance of Scorpions generated only by corrupt rain-water
standing in that place. Also out of the Basalisk beaten into pieces and
so putrefied are Scorpions engendered. And when as one had planted the
herb basilica on a wall, in the room or place thereof he found two
Scorpions. And some say that if a man chaw in his mouth fasting this
herb basill before he wash, and afterward lay the same abroad uncovered
where no sun cometh at it for the space of seven nights, taking it in
all the daytime, he shall at length finde it transmuted into a Scorpion,
with a tayl of seven knots.[1086]
“Hollerius,[1087] to take away all scruple of this thing, writeth that
in Italy in his dayes there was a man that had a Scorpion bred in his
brain by continuall smelling to this herb basill; and Gesner, by
relation of an apothecary in France, writeth likewise a story of a young
maid who, by smelling to basill, fell into an exceeding headache,
whereof she died without cure, and after death, being opened, there were
found little Scorpions in her brain.
“Aristotle remembreth an herb which he calleth sissimbria, out of which
putrefied Scorpions are engendered, as he writeth. And we have shewed
already, in the history of the Crocodile, that out of the Crocodile’s
egges do many times come Scorpions, which at their first egression do
kill their dam that hatched them, which caused Archelaus, which wrote
epigrams of wonders unto Ptolemæus, to sing of Scorpions in this manner:
In vos dissolvit morte, et redigit crocodilum
Natura extinctum, Scorpii omnipotens.
Which may be Englished thus: