Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions. / A Complete Collection of the Legends, Superstitions, Beliefs, and Ominous Signs Connected with Insects; Together with Their Uses in Medicine, Art, and as Food; and a Summary of Their Remarkable Injuries and Appearances.

by Frank Cowan

Elateridæ—Fire-flies, Spring-beetles, etc.

In an historical sense, the most interesting species of the family Elateridæ is the Elater noctilucus, a native of the West Indies, and called by the inhabitants, Cucujus. From an ancient translation of Peter Martyr’s History of the West Indies, we make the following quotation, which contains many curious facts relative to this insect:

“Whoso wanteth Cucuji, goeth out of the house in the first twilight of the night, carrying a burning fier-brande in his hande, and ascendeth the next hillocke, that the Cucuji may see it, and swingeth the fier-brande about calling

Cucuji aloud, and beating the ayre with often calling and crying out Cucuji, Cucuji.… Beholde the desired number of Cucuji, at what time, the hunter casteth the fier-brande out of his hande. Some Cucuji sometimes followeth the fier-brande, and lighteth on the grounde, then is he easily taken.… The hunter havinge the hunting Cucuius, returneth home, and shutting the doore of the house, letteth the praye goe. The Cucuius loosed, swiftly flyeth about the whole house seeking gnatts, under their hanging bedds, and about the faces of them that sleepe, whiche the gnattes used to assayle, they seem to execute the office of watchmen, that such as are shut in, may quietly rest. Another pleasant and profitable commodity proceedeth from the Cucuji. As many eyes as every Cucuius openeth, the host enjoyeth the light of so many candles: so that the Inhabitants spinne, sewe, weave, and daunce by the light of the flying Cucuji. The Inhabitants think that the Cucuius is delighted with the harmony and melodie of their singing, and that he also exerciseth his motion in the ayre according to the action of their dancing.… Our men also read and write by that light, which always continueth untill hee have gotten enough gnatts whereby he may be well fedd.… There is also another wonderfull commodity proceeding from the Cucuius: the Islanders, appoynted by our menn, goe with their good will by night with 2 Cucuji tyed to the great tooes of their feete: (for the travailer[160] goeth better by direction of the lights of the Cucuji, then if hee brought so many candels with him, as the Cucuji open eyes) he also carryeth another Cucuius in his hande to seeke the Utiae by night (Utiae are a certayne kind of Cony, a little exceeding a mouse in bignesse.)… They also go a fishing by the lights of the Cucuji.… In sport, and merriment, or to the intent to terrifie such as are affrayed of every shaddow, they say that many wanton wild fellowes sometimes rubbed their faces by night with the fleshe of a Cucuius being killed, with purpose to meete their neighbors with a flaming countenance … for the face being annointed with the lumpe or fleshy parte of the Cucuius, shineth like a flame of fire.”[161]

At Cumana, the use of the Cucujus is forbidden, as the young Spanish ladies used to carry on a correspondence at night with their lovers by means of the light derived from them.[162]

Captain Stedman tells us, that one of his sentinels, one night, called out that he saw a negro, with a lighted tobacco-pipe, cross a creek near by in a canoe. At which alarm they lost no time in leaping out of their hammocks, and were not a little mortified when they found the pipe was nothing more than a Fire-fly on the wing.[163]

An individual of this species, brought to Paris in some wood, in the larva or nymph state, there underwent its metamorphosis, and by the light which it emitted, excited the greatest surprise among many of the inhabitants of the Faubourg St. Antoine, to whom such a phenomenon had hitherto been unknown.[164]

When Cortes and Narvaez were at war with one another in Mexico, Bernal Diaz relates “that one night in the midst of darkness numbers of shining Beetles (Elater noctilucus) kept continually flying about, which Narvaez’s men mistook for the lighted matches of our fire-arms, and this gave them a vast idea of the number of our matchlocks.”[165] Thomas Campanius tells us that one night the Cucuji frightened all the soldiers at Fort Christina, in New Sweden (Pennsylvania?): they thought they were enemies advancing toward them with lighted torches.[166] Another such like story, which is not incredible by any means, is told us by Mouffet. He says that when Sir Thomas Cavendish and Sir Robert Dudley first landed in the West Indies, and saw an infinite number of moving lights in the woods, which were merely these Elaters, they supposed that the Spaniards were advancing upon them with lighted matches, and immediately betook themselves to their ships.[167]

The Indians of the Carribbee Islands, Ogleby remarks, “anoint their bodies all over (at certain solemnities wherein candles are forbidden) with the juice squeezed out of them

(Cucuji), which causes them to shine like a flame of fire.”[168] And in the Spanish Colonies, on certain festival days in the month of June, these insects are collected in great numbers, and tied as decorations all over the garments of the young people, who gallop through the streets on horses similarly ornamented, producing on a dark evening the effect of a large moving body of light. On such occasions the lover displays his gallantry by decking his mistress with these living gems.[169]

At the present day, the poorer classes of Cuba and the other West India Islands, make use of these luminous insects for lights in their houses. Twenty or thirty of them put into a small wicker-work cage, and dampened a little with water, will produce quite a brilliant light. Throughout these islands, the Cucujus is worn by the ladies as a most fashionable ornament. As many as fifty or a hundred are sometimes worn on a single ball-room dress. Capt. Stuart tells me he once saw one of these insects upon a lady’s white collar, which at a little distance rivaled the Kohinoor in splendor and beauty. The insect is fastened to the dress by a pin through its body, and only worn so long as it lives, for it loses its light when dead.

The statement of Humboldt is, that at the present day in the habitations of the poorer classes of Cuba, a dozen of Cucuji placed in a perforated gourd suffice for a light during the night. By shaking the gourd quickly, the insect is roused, and lights up its luminous disks. The inhabitants employ a truthful and simple expression, in saying that a gourd filled with Cucuji is an ever-lighted torch; and in fact it is only extinguished by the death of the insects, which are easily kept alive with a little sugar cane. A lady in Trinidad told this great traveler, that during a long and painful passage from Costa Firme, she had availed herself of these phosphorescent insects whenever she wished to give the breast to her child at night. The captain of the ship would not permit any other light on board at night, for fear of the privateers.[170]

Southy has happily introduced the Cucujus in his

“Madoc” as furnishing the lamp by which Coatel rescued the British hero from the hands of the Mexican priests:

She beckon’d and descended, and drew out

From underneath her vest a cage, or net

It rather might be called, so fine the twigs

Which knit it, where, confined, two fire-flies gave

Their lustre. By that light did Madoc first

Behold the features of his lovely guide.

Darwin says: “In Jamaica, at some seasons of the year, the Fire-flies are seen in the evening in great abundance. When they settle on the ground, the bull-frog greedily devours them, which seems to have given origin to a curious, though very cruel, method of destroying these animals: if red-hot pieces of charcoal be thrown toward them in the dusk of the evening, they leap at them, and hastily swallow them, mistaking them for Fire-flies, and are burnt to death.”(!)[171]

Beetles belonging to the family Elateridæ have been so called from a peculiar power they have of leaping up like a tumbler when placed on their backs, and for this reason they have received the English appellations of Spring-beetles and Skip-jacks, and from the noise which the operation makes when they leap, they are also called Snap, Watch, or Click-beetle, and likewise Blacksmiths.

If a Blacksmith beetle enters your house, a quarrel will ensue which may end in blows.

This superstition obtains in Maryland.