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.Cowan, Frank
History
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.
Cowan, Frank
Insects
The todler-tyke has a very gude byke,
And sae has the gairy Bee;
But weel’s me on the little red-doup,
The best o’ a’ the three.[736]
When the Archbishop of St. Andrews was cruelly murdered in 1679, “upon
the opening of his tobacco box a living humming bee flew out,” which was
explained to be a familiar or devil. A Scottish woman declared that a
child was poisoned by its grandmother, who, together with herself, were
“in the shape of bume-bees,” that the former carried the poison “in her
cleugh, wings, and mouth.” A great Bee constantly resorted to another
after receiving the Satanic mark, and rested on it.[737]
An anecdote is related by M. Reaumur respecting the thimble-shaped nest,
formed of leaves, of the Carpenter-bee (_Apis centuncularis_?), which is
a striking instance of the ridiculous superstition which prevails among
the uneducated, and which even sometimes has no slight influence on
those of better understandings. “In the beginning of July, 1736, the
learned Abbé Nollet, then at Paris, was surprised by a visit from an
auditor of the chamber of accounts, whose estate lay at a distant
village on the borders of the Seine, a few leagues from Rouen. This
gentleman came accompanied, among other domestics, by a gardener, whose
face had an air of much concern. He had come to Paris in consequence of
having found in his master’s ground many rows of leaves, unaccountably
disposed in a mystical manner, and which he could not but believe were
there placed by witchcraft, for the secret destruction of his lord and
family. He had, after recovering from his first consternation, shown
them to the curate of the parish, who was inclined to be of a similar
opinion, and advised him without delay to take a journey to Paris, and
make his lord acquainted with the circumstance. This gentleman, though
not quite so much alarmed as the honest gardener, could not feel himself
at perfect ease, and therefore thought it advisable to consult his
surgeon upon the business, who, though a man eminent in his profession,
declared himself utterly unacquainted with the nature of what was shown
him, but took the liberty of advising that the Abbé Nollet, as a
philosopher, should be consulted, whose well-known researches in natural
knowledge might perhaps enable him to elucidate the matter. It was in
consequence of this advice that the Abbé received the visit above
mentioned, and had the satisfaction of relieving all parties from their
embarrassment, by showing them several nests formed on a similar plan by
other insects, and assuring them that those in their possession were the
work of insects also.”[738]
In an English paper, the Observer, of July 25, 1813, there is an account
of a “swarm of Bees resting themselves on the inside of a lady’s
parasol.” They were hived without any serious injury to the lady.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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