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
Pliny, in the words of his translator, Holland, says: “Many a time have
the Locusts been knowne to take their flight out of Affricke, and with
whole armies to infest Italie: many a time have the people of Rome,
fearing a great famine and scarcity toward, beene forced to have
recourse unto Sybil’s bookes for remedie, and to avert the ire of the
gods. In the Cyrenaick region within Barbarie, ordained it is by law,
every three years to wage warre against them, and so to conquer them....
Yea, and a grievous punishment lieth upon him that is negligent in this
behalf, as if hee were a traitour to his prince and countrey. Moreover,
within the Island Lemnos there is a certaine proportion and measure set
down, how many and what quantity every man shall kill; and they are to
exhibit unto the magistrate a just and true account thereof, and namely,
to shew what measure full of dead Locusts. And for this purpose they
make much of Iaies, Dawes, and Choughs, whom they do honour highly,
because they doe flie opposite against the Locusts, and so destroy them.
Moreover in Syria, they are forced to levie a warlike power of men
against them, and to make ridance by that means.”[369]
Democritus says, if a cloud of Locusts is coming forward, let all
persons remain quiet within doors, and they will pass over the place;
but if they suddenly arrive before they are observed, they will hurt
nothing, if you boil bitter lupines, or wild cucumbers, in brine, and
sprinkle it, for they will immediately die. They will likewise pass over
the subjacent spot, continues Democritus, if you catch some bats and tie
them on the high trees of the place; and if you take and burn some of
the Locusts, they are rendered torpid from the smell, and some indeed
die, and some drooping their wings, await their pursuers, and they are
destroyed by the sun. You will drive away Locusts, continues this same
writer, if you prepare some liquor for them, and dig trenches, and
besprinkle them with the liquor; for if you come there afterward, you
will find them oppressed with sleep; but how you are to destroy them is
to be your concern. A Locust will touch nothing, he concludes, if you
pound absinthium, or a leek, or centaury with water, and sprinkle
it.[370]
Didymus says, to preserve vines from that species of Locusts called by
the ancients _Bruchus_, set three grains of mustard around the stem of
the vine at the root; for these being thus set, have the power of
destroying the Bruchus.[371]
Nieuhoff tells us that when a swarm of Locusts is seen in China, the
inhabitants, to prevent their alighting, “march to and again the fields
with their colors flying, shouting and hallooing all the while; never
leaving them till they are driven into the sea, or some river, where
they fall down and are drowned.”[372]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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