In the old chronicles we often read of drops of blood scattered here and there being regarded as a sinister omen, or even of regular showers of blood which carried terror into the minds of our superstitious ancestors. Now-a-days we know that the phenomenon is connected with the metamorphosis of insects. Gregory of Tours speaks of a shower of blood which fell in the reign of Childebert and spread alarm among the Franks. But the most celebrated is that which took place at Aix during the summer of 1608. It struck the inhabitants of the country with terror. The walls of the church-yard and those of the houses for half a league round were spotted with great drops of blood. A careful examination of them convinced a savant of that day, M. de Peirese, that all that was told about the subject was only a fable. He could not at first explain the extraordinary phenomenon, but chance revealed the cause. Having inclosed in a box the chrysalis of one of the butterflies which were then showing themselves in great numbers, he was astonished to see a stain of scarlet red at the spot where the metamorphosis had taken place. He had discovered the cause of the wondrous rain which had alarmed the people. A prodigious swarm of butterflies had appeared at the time, and his conjectures were confirmed by the fact that no drops of blood had been found on the roofs of the houses, but only on the lower stories, the places which the butterflies had chosen for their metamorphoses. _Shirts Growing on Trees._ "We saw on the slope of the Cerra Dnida," says Humboldt, "shirt trees fifty feet high. The Indians cut off cylindrical pieces two feet in diameter, from which they peel the red and fibrous bark without making any longitudinal incision. This bark affords them a sort of garment which resembles a sack of very coarse texture, and without a seam. The upper opening serves for the head, and two lateral holes are cut to admit the arms. The natives wear these shirts of Marina in the rainy season; they have the form of the ponchos and manos of cotton which are so common in New Grenada, at Quito and in Peru. As in this climate the riches and beneficence of nature are regarded as the primary cause of the indolence of the inhabitants, the missionaries do not fail to say, in showing the shirts of Marina, 'In the forests of Oroonoka garments are found ready made upon the trees.'" _Whistling Trees._