“The seventeene of March, 1586,” says John Stow in his Annales of England, “a strange thing happened, the like whereof before hath not beene heard of in our time. Master Dorington, of Spaldwicke, in the countie of Huntington, esquier, one of his maiesties gentlemen Pensioners, had a horse which died sodainly, and, being ripped to see the cause of his death, there was found in the hole of the hart of the same horse a strange worme, which lay on a round heape in a kall or skin of the likeness of a toade, which, being taken out and spread abroad, was in forme and fashion not easie to be described, the length of which worme divided into many greines to the number of fiftie (spread from the bodie like the branches of a tree), was from the snowte to the ende of the longest greine, seventeene inches, having four issues in the greines, from the which dropped foorth a red water; the body in bignes round about was three inches and a halfe, the colour whereof was very like a makerel. This monstrous worme, found in manner aforesaid, crauling to have got away, was stabbed in with a dagger and died, which, after being dried, was shewed to many honorable persons of the realme.”[1252]
Dr. Sparrman, in his journey to Paarl, an inland town at the Cape of Good Hope, having filled his insect-box with fine specimens, was obliged to put a “whole regiment of flies and other insects” round the brim of his hat. Having entered the house of a rich old widow troubled with the gout, for food, he was warned by his servant that if she should happen to see the insects he would certainly be turned out of doors for a conjuror (hexmeester). Accordingly he was very careful to keep his hat always turned away from her, but all would not do—the old lady discovered the “little beasts,” and to her greater astonishment that they were run through their bodies with pins. An immediate explanation was demanded; and had the doctor not been just then lamenting with the widow for her deceased husband, and giving dissertations on the dropsy and cough that carried off the poor man, the explanation he gave would hardly have been sufficient to quell the rage of this superstitious boor at the thought of there being a sorcerer in her house.[1253]
In several parts of Europe quite a trade is carried on in the way of buying and selling rare insects, chiefly the rare Alpine butterflies and moths. The instant the entomologist steps from his carriage, in the celebrated valley of Chamouni, with net in hand, whence he is known to be a papillionist, he is surrounded by half a dozen Savoyard boys, from the age of fifteen down to eight, each with a large collecting-box full of insects in his hands for sale, and with the scientist bargains for the insects that are found only on the mountains, and which these hardy chaps alone can obtain. There are again insect dealers on a larger scale, who live there, and have many of these boys in their employ; one of which wholesale merchants, Michel Bossonney, at Martigni in the Vallais, in the year 1829, sold 7000 insects, mostly of rare and beautiful species. Another dealer, on a perhaps still larger scale, is M. Provost Duval, of Geneva, a highly respectable entomologist. In 1830, he could supply upwards of 600 species of Lepidoptera, and as many Coleoptera, of the Swiss Alps, the south of France, and Germany, at prices varying from one to fifteen francs each, according to their rarity.
The advantage of this new traffic, both to the individuals engaged in it and to science, is great. Now the Sphinx
(Deilephila) hippophaes, formerly sold at sixty francs each, and of which one of the first discovered specimens was sold for two hundred francs, is so plentiful, in consequence of the numbers collected and reared through their several stages, by the peasants all along the course of the Arve, where the plant, Hippophae rhamöides, on which the larvæ feed, and the imago takes its specific name, grows in profusion, that a specimen costs but three francs. A general taste also for the science, and an appreciation for beauty, is spread by the more striking Alpine species, such as Parnassius apollo and Calichroma alpina, not only among the travelers who buy them for their beauty, who before would hardly deign to look upon an insect, but among the more ignorant Alpine collectors themselves.[1254]
Navarette, under the head of “Insects and Vermin,” speaks of an animal which the Chinese call Jen Ting, or Wall-dragon, because it runs up and down walls. It is also, says this traveler, called the Guard of the Palace, and this for the following reason: The emperors were accustomed to make an ointment of this insect, and some other ingredients, with which they anointed their concubines’ wrists, as the mark of it continued as long as they had not to do with man; but as soon as they did so, it immediately vanished, by which their honesty or falsehood was discovered. Hence it came that this insect was called the Guard of the Court, or, of the court ladies. Navarette laments that all men have not a knowledge of this wonderful ointment.[1255]
Navarette tells us he once caught (in China?) a small insect that was injurious to poultry—“a very deformed insect, and of a strange shape”—when, as soon as it was known, several women ran to him to beg its tail. He gave it to them, and they told him it was of excellent use when dried, and made into powder, “being a prodigious help to women in labor, to forward their delivery, if they drank it in a little wine.”[1256]
The Irish have a large beetle of which strange tales are believed; they term it the Coffin-cutter, and deem it in some way connected with the grave and purgatory.[1257]
Turpin, in his History of Siam, says: “There is a very singular animal in Siam … bred in the dung of elephants. It is entirely black, its wings are strong, and its head extremely curious: it is furnished on the top with several points, in the form of a trunk, and a small horn in the middle: it has four large feet, which raise it more than an inch from the ground: its back seems to be one very hard entire shell. It flies to the very top of the cocoa-trees, of which it eats the heart, and often kills them, if a remedy is not applied. Children play with them, and make them fight.”[1258]
General Count Déjeau, Aid-de-camp to Napoleon Bonaparte, was so anxious, says Jaeger, in his Life of North American Insects, to increase the number of specimens in his entomological cabinet, that he even availed himself of his military campaigns for this purpose, and was continually occupied in collecting insects and fastening them with pins on the outside of his hat, which was always covered with them. The Emperor, as well as the whole army, were accustomed to see General Déjeau’s head thus singularly ornamented, even when in battle. But the departed spirits of those murdered insects once had their revenge on him; for, in the battle of Wagram, in 1809, and while he was at the side of Napoleon, a shot from the enemy struck Déjeau’s head, and precipitated him senseless from his horse. Soon, however, recovering from the shock, and being asked by the Emperor if he was still alive, he answered, “I am not dead; but, alas! my insects are all gone!” for his hat was literally torn to pieces.[1259]