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 manner of hunting and catching them is this, They take a flie and
tie it above the middest at the end of a long haire of one’s head, and
so put the said flie into the mouth of the Cricquet’s hole; but first
they blow the dust away with their mouth, for fear lest the flie should
hide herself therein; the Cricket spies the sillie flie, seaseth upon
her presently and claspeth her round, and so they are both drawne foorth
together by the said haire.”[299]
At the present time, children in France practice the same method of
capturing Crickets for amusement; substituting, however, an ant for the
“sillie flie,” and a long straw for “the haire of one’s head.” Hence
comes the common proverb in France, _il est sot comme un grillon_. A
ruse for capturing the larva of the Cicindela, now commonly practiced by
entomologists, is founded on the same principle.
Pliny further says: “The Cricquets above rehearsed, either reduced into
a liniment, or else bound too, whole as they be, cureth the accident of
the lap of the eare, wounds, contusions, bruises,” etc.[300]
Dr. James, quoting Schroder and Dale, says: “The ashes of the Cricket
(_Gryllus domesticus_) exhibited, are said to be diuretic; the expressed
juice, dropped into the eyes, is a remedy for weakness of the sight, and
alleviates disorders of the tonsils, if rubbed on them.”[301]
The English name _Cricket_, the French _Cri-cri_, the Dutch _Krekel_,
and the Welsh _Cricell_ and _Cricella_, are evidently derived from the
_creak_-ing sounds of these insects.
Gryllidæ--Grasshoppers.
Mr. Hughes, after describing an ash-colored Grasshopper (which may be
his ash-colored cricket before mentioned),[302] remarks that the
superstitious of the inhabitants of Barbados are very apprehensive of
some approaching illness to the family, whenever this insect flies into
their houses in the evening or in the night.[303]
Athenæus tells us the ancient Greeks used to eat the common Grasshopper
and the Monkey-grasshopper as provocatives of the appetite. Aristophanes
says:
How can you, in God’s name, like Grasshoppers,
Catching them with a reed, and Cercopes?[304]
Turpin tells us there is a kind of brown Grasshopper in Siam, which the
natives consider a delicate food.[305]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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