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

Vespidæ—Wasps, Hornets.

Concerning the generation of the Wasp, Topsel and Moufet have the following: “Isidore affirms that Wasps come out of the putrefied carkasses of asses, although he may be mistaken, for all agree that the Scarabees are procreated from them: rather am I of opinion with Pliny, 1. ii. c. 20, and the Greek authors, that they are sprung from the dead bodies of horses, for the horse is a valiant and warlike creature, hence is that verse frequently and commonly used among the Greeks:

Wasps come from horses, Bees from bulls are bred.

And indeed their more than ordinary swiftnesse and their eagernesse in fight, are sufficient arguments that they can take their original from no other creature (much less from an asse, hart, or oxe) since that Nature never granted to any creatures else, to excel both in swiftness and valour. And surely that I may give another sense of that proverb of Aristotle,

Hail the daughters of the wing-footed steed:

this would I suppose fit to be spoken in way of jest and scorn to scolding women, which do imitate the hastiness and froward disposition of the Wasp. Other sorts of them are produced out of the putrid corps of the Crocodiles, if Horus and the Ægyptians be to be believed, for which reason when they mean a Wasp, they set it forth by an horse or crocodile. Nicander gives them the name lukosnoadon, because they sometimes come from the dead carkasses of wolves. Bellenacensis and Vicentius say, that Wasps come out of the putrefaction of an old deer’s head, flying sometimes out of the eyes, sometimes out of the nostrils.… There are those also that affirm that Wasps are begotten of the earth and rottenness of some kind of fruits, as Albertus and the Arabick scholiast.”

Of the Hornet, likewise, these writers tell the following fabulous stories: “The Latins call the Hornets Crabrones, perchance from the village Crabra in the countrey of Tusculum (where there are great store of them), or from the word Caballus, i.e. a horse, who is said to be their father. According to that of Ovid, Met. 15:

The warlike horse if buried under ground,

Shortly a brood of Hornets will be found.

Albertus calls it a yellow Bee. Cardanus will needs have them to arise from the dead mule. Plutarch, in the life of Cleomedes, saith they come out of horse flesh, as the Bees do out of the oxe his paunch. Virgil saith they are produced of the asse.… I conceive that those are produced of the harder flesh of the horse, and the Wasps of the more tender flesh.”[590]

The Hornet (but whether or not it was the common species, Vespa crabro, Linn., is uncertain), we learn from Scriptures was employed by Providence to drive out the impious inhabitants of Canaan, and subdue them under the hand of the Israelites.—“And I sent the Hornet before you, which drave them out before you, even the two kings of the Amorites.”[591]

In the second volume of Lieutenant Holman’s Travels,

the following anecdote is related: “Eight miles from Grandie——, the muleteers suddenly called out ‘Marambundas! Marambundas!’ which indicated the approach of Wasps. In a moment all the animals, whether loaded or otherwise, lay down on their backs, kicking most violently; while the blacks, and all persons not already attacked, ran away in different directions, all being careful, by a wide sweep, to avoid the swarms of tormentors that came forward like a cloud. I never witnessed a panic so sudden and complete, and really believe that the bursting of a water-spout could hardly have produced more commotion. However, it must be confessed that the alarm was not without good reason, for so severe is the torture inflicted by these pigmy assailants, that the bravest travelers are not ashamed to fly, the instant they perceive the host approaching, which is of common occurrence on the Campos.”[592]

Dr. Fairfax, in the Philosophical Transactions, mentions a lady, who had such a horror of Wasps, that during the season in which they abound in houses, she always confined herself to her apartment.[593]

Dr. James tells us: “The combs (of the Hornet) are recommended in a drench for that disorder in horses, which Vigetius, L. 2, c. 23, calls scrofula, meaning, I believe, what we call the strangles.”[594]

Hornets’-nest is smoked under horses’ noses for distemper, cold in the head, and such like diseases. It is also given to horses in their feed for thick-windedness.

The nests of Hornets are gathered by the country people to clean spectacles.

Topsel, in his History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, has the following prognostications of the weather from the appearances of Hornets: “They serve instead of good almanacks to countrey people, to foretel tempests and change of weather, as hail, rain, and snow: for if they flie about in greater numbers, and be oftner seen about any place, then usually they are wont, it is a signe of heat and fair weather the next day. But if about twilight they are observed to enter often their nests, as though they would hide themselves, you must the next day expect rain, winde,

or some stormy, troublesome or boysterous season: whereupon Avienus hath these verses:

So if the buzzing troups of Hornets hoarse to flie,

In spacious air ’bout Autumn’s end you see,

When Virgil star the evening lamp espie,

Then from the sea some stormy tempest sure shall be.”[595]

“In the year 190, before the birth of Christ,” say Moufet and Topsel, “as Julius witnesseth, an infinite multitude of Wasps flew into the market at Capua, and sate in the temple of Mars, they were with great diligence taken and burnt solemnly, yet they did foreshew the coming of the enemy and the burning of the city.”[596]

The first Wasp seen in the season should always be killed. By so doing, you secure to yourself good luck and freedom from enemies throughout the year.[597] This is an English superstition, and it prevails in parts of America. We have one, also, directly opposed to it, namely, that the first Wasp seen in the season should not be killed if you wish to secure to yourself good luck. Many of our people, too, will kill a Wasp at no time, for, if killed, they say, it will bring upon them bad luck.

If a Wasp stings you, our superstitious think that your foes will get the advantage of you.

If the first Wasp seen in the season be seen in your house, it is a sign that you will form an unpleasant acquaintance. If the first Bee seen in the season be seen in your house, it is a sign you will form a pleasant and useful acquaintance. This arose doubtless from the apparent uselessness of the former, and worth of the latter insect.

Wasps building in a house foretell the coming to want of the family occupying it. Likewise arose from the unthriftiness of this insect.

If Hornets build high, the winter will be dry and mild; if low, cold and stormy. This is firmly believed in Virginia; and the idea seems to be, that if the nest is built high it will be more exposed to the wind than if built low.

That a person may not be stung by Wasps, Paxamus says:

“Let the person be rubbed with the juice of wild-mallow, and he will not be stung.”[598]

The Creoles of Mauritius eat the larvæ of Wasps, which they roast in the combs. In taking the nests, they drive off the Wasps by means of a burning rag fastened to the end of a stick. The combs are sold at the bazaar of Port Louis.[599]

The following story, of the cunning of the fox in killing the Wasps to obtain their combs, is told by Ælian: “The fox (a subtile creature) is said to prey upon the Wasp in this manner: he puts his tail into the Wasps’ nest so long till it be all covered with Wasps, which he espying, pulls it out and beats them against the next stone or tree he meets withall till they be all dead, this being done again and again till all the Wasps be destroyed, he sets upon their combs and devours them.”[600]

The Chinese Herbal contains a singular notion, prevalent also in India, concerning the generation of the Sphex, or solitary Wasp. When the female lays her eggs in the clayey nidus she makes in houses, she incloses the dead body of a caterpillar in it for the subsistence of the worms when they are hatched. Those who observed her entombing the caterpillar did not look for the eggs, and immediately concluded that the Sphex took the worm for the progeny, and say, that as she plastered up the hole of the nest, she hummed a constant song over it, saying, “Class with me! class with me!”—and the transformation gradually took place, and was perfected in its silent grave by the next spring, when a winged Wasp emerged, to continue its posterity the coming autumn in the same mysterious way.[601]