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

Ephemeridæ—Day-flies.

The name of Ephemeridæ has been given to the insects, so called, in consequence of the short duration of their lives, when they have acquired their final form. There are some of them which never see the sun; they are born after it is set, and die before it reappears on the horizon.

These insects, indifferently called also Day-flies and May-flies, usually make their appearance in the districts watered by the Seine and the Marne, in the month of August; and in such countless myriads, that the fishermen of these rivers believe they are showered down from heaven, and accordingly call the living cloud of them manna—manna for fish, not men. Reaumur once saw them descend in this region so fast, that the step on which he stood by the river’s bank was covered by a layer four inches thick in a few minutes. He compares their falling to that of snow with the largest flakes.[472]

Scopoli assures us that such swarms are produced every season in the neighborhood of some particular spots in the Duchy of Carniola, that the countrymen think they obtain but a small portion, unless every farmer can carry off about twenty cartloads of them into his fields for the purpose of a manure.[473]