lasted for more than forty-two years. At length the inhabitants proposed to compromise the matter by giving up, in perpetuity, to the insects, a fertile part of the district for their sole use and benefit. Of course the advocate of the animals demurred to the proposition, but the court, overruling the demurrer, appointed assessors to survey the land, and, it proving to be well wooded and watered, and every way suitable for the insects, ordered the conveyance to be engrossed in due form and executed. The unfortunate people then thought they had got rid of a trouble imposed upon them by their litigious fathers and grandfathers; but they were sadly mistaken. It was discovered that there had formerly been a mine or quarry of an ochreous earth, used as a pigment, in the land conveyed to the insects, and though the quarry had long since been worked out and exhausted, some one possessed an ancient right of way to it, which if exercised would be greatly to the annoyance of the new proprietors. Consequently the contract was vitiated, and the whole process commenced de novo. How or when it ended, the mutilation of the recording documents prevents us from knowing; but it is certain that the proceedings commenced in the year 1445, and that they had not concluded in 1487. So what with the insects, the lawyers, and the church, the poor inhabitants must have been pretty well fleeced. During the whole period of a process, religious processions and other expensive ceremonies that had to be well paid for, were strictly enjoined. Besides, no district could commence a process of this kind unless all its arrears of tithes were paid up; and this circumstance gave rise to the well-known French legal maxim—‘The first step toward getting rid of locusts is the payment of tithes?’ an adage that in all probability was susceptible of more meanings than one.”[227]
Cerambycidæ—Musk-beetles.
Moufet says: “The Cerambyx, knowing that his legs are weak, twists his horns about the branch of a tree, and so he hangs at ease.… They thrust upon us some
German fables, as many as say it flies only, and when it is weary it falls to the earth and presently dies. Those that are slaves to tales, render this reason for it: Terambus, a satyrist, did not abstain from quipping of the Muses, whereupon they transformed him into a beetle called Cerambyx, and that deservedly, to endure a double punishment, for he hath legs weak that he goes lame, and like a thief he hangs on a tree. Antonius Libealis, lib. i. of his Metamorphosis, relates the matter in these words: The Muses in anger transformed Terambus because he reproached them, and he was made a Cerambyx that feeds on wood,” etc.[228]
A large species of longicorn beetles, the Acanthocinus ædilis, is the well-known Timerman of Sweden and Lapland; an insect which the natives of these countries regard with a kind of superstitious veneration. Its presence is thought to be the presage of good fortune, and it is as carefully protected and cherished as storks are by the peasantry of the Low Countries.[229]
It has been found that the common cinnamon-colored Musk-beetle, Cerambyx moschatus, when dried and reduced to powder, and made use of as a vesicatory, in the manner of the officinal Cantharides, produces a similar effect, and in as short a space of time.[230]
The Prionus damicornis is a native of many parts of America and the West Indies, where its larva, a grub about three and a half inches in length, and of the thickness of the little finger, is in great request as an article of food, being considered by epicures as one of the greatest delicacies of the New World. We are informed by authors of the highest respectability, that some people of fortune in the West Indies keep negroes for the sole purpose of going into the woods in quest of these admired larvæ, who scoop them out of the trees in which they reside. Dr. Browne, in his History of Jamaica, informs us that they are chiefly found in the plum and silk-cotton trees (Bombax). They are commonly called by the name of Macauco, or Macokkos. The mode of dressing them is first to open and wash them, and then carefully broil them over a charcoal fire.[231]
Sir Hans Sloane tells us the Indians of Jamaica boil them in their soups, pottages, olios, and pepper-pots, and account them of delicious flavor, much like, but preferable to, marrow; and the negroes of this island roast them slightly at the fire, and eat them with bread.[232]
A similar larva is dressed at Mauritius under the name of Moutac, which the whites as well as the negroes eat greedily.[233] According to Linnæus, the larva of the Prionus cervicornis is held in equal estimation; and that of the Acanthocinus tribulus when roasted forms an article of food in Africa.[234]
The Cossus of Pliny belonged most probably to this tribe, or to the Lucanidæ.