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

Œstridæ—Bot-flies.

The larvæ of Bots, Œstris ovis, found in the heads of sheep and goats, have been prescribed, and that, from the tripod of Delphos, as a remedy for the epilepsy. We are told so on the authority of Alexander Trailien; but whether Democritus, who consulted the oracle, was cured by this remedy, does not appear; the story shows, however, that the ancients were aware that these maggots made their way even into the brain of living animals.[1007] The oracle answered Democritus as follows:

Take a tame goat that hath the greatest head,

Or else a wilde goat in the field that’s bred,

And in his forehead a great worm you’l finde,

This cures all diseases of that kinde.[1008]

The common saying that a whimsical person is maggoty, or has got maggots in his head, perhaps arose from the freaks the sheep have been observed to exhibit when infested by their Bots.[1009]

The following “charme for the Bots[1010] in a horse” is found in Scots’ Discovery of Witchcraft, printed in 1651: “You must both say and do thus upon the diseased horse three days together, before the sun rising: In nomine pa†tris & fi†lii & Spiritus†sancti, Exorcize te vermen per Deum pa†trem & fi†lium & Spiritum†sanctum: that is, In the name of God the father, the sonne, and the Holy Ghost, I conjure thee O worm by God, the Father, the sonne, and the Holy Ghost; that thou neither eate nor drink the flesh, blood, or bones of this horse; and that thou hereby maiest be made as patient as Job, and as good as S. John Baptist, when he baptized Christ in Jordan, In nomine pa†tris & fi†lii et spiritus†sancti. And then say three Pater nosters, and three Aves, in the right eare of the horse, to the glory of the holy trinity. Do†minus fili†us spirit†us Mari†a.”[1011]

There is a popular error in England respecting the Œstrus (Gasterophilus) equi (hæmorrhoidalis), which Shakspeare

has followed, and which has been judiciously explained by Mr. Clark. Shakspeare makes the carrier at Rochester observe: “Peas and oats are as dank here as a dog, and that’s the next way to give poor jades the bots.”[1012]