In the Island of Sumatra, Capt. Stuart tells me, a black Cricket is looked upon with great respect, amounting almost to adoration. It is deemed a grievous sin to kill it.
Baskets full of Field-crickets, Lopes de Gomara says, were found among the provisions of the Indians of Jamaica when they were first discovered.
"The Criquet called Gryllus," says Pliny in the words of Holland, "doth mitigat catarrhs and all asperities offending the throat, if the same bee rubbed therewith: also if a man doe but touch the amygdals or almonds of the throat, with the hand wherewith he hath bruised or crushed the said Criquet, it will appease the inflammation thereof." Again, "The Cricket digged up and applied to the plase, earth and all where it lay, is very good for the ears. Nigridius," continues Pliny, "attributeth many properties to this poore creature, and esteemeth it not a little: but the Magicians much more by a faire deale: and why so? Forsooth because it goeth, as it were, reculing backward, it pierceth and boreth a hole into the ground, and never ceaseth all night long to creake very shrill.
"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."
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.
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."
The English name Cricket, the French Cri-cri, the Dutch Krekel, and the Welsh Cricell and Cricella, are evidently derived from the creaking sounds of these insects.
Gryllidae — Grasshoppers.
Mr. Hughes, after describing an ash-colored Grasshopper (which may be his ash-colored cricket before mentioned), 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.
Athenaeus 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?
Turpin tells us there is a kind of brown Grasshopper in Siam, which the natives consider a delicate food.
"Fernandus Oviedo declareth furthermore," says Peter Martyr in his History of the West Indies, "that in a certain region called Zenu, lying fourescore and tenne miles from Darien Eastwarde, they exercise a strange kinde of marchaundize: For in the houses of the inhabitantes they found great chests and baskets, made of twigges and leaves of certaine trees apt for that purpose, being all ful of Grasshoppers, Grilles, Crabbes, Crefishes, Snails also, and Locusts, which destroie the fields of corne, all well dried and salted. Being demanded why they reserved such a multitude of these beastes: they answered, that they kept them to be sowlde (sold) to the borderors, which dwell further within the lande, and that for the exchange of these pretious birdes, and salted fishes, they received of them certayne straunge thinges, wherein partly they take pleasure, and partly use them for the necessarie affaires."
In the account of the voyages of J. Huighen Linschoten, it is stated that the inhabitants of Cumana eat "horse-leeches, bats, Grasshoppers, spiders, bees, and raw, sodden, and roasted lice. They spare no living creature whatsoever, but they eat it."
"Among the choice delicacies with which the California Digger Indians regale themselves during the summer season," says the Empire County Argus, "is the Grasshopper roast. Having been an eye-witness to the preparation and discussion of one of their feasts of Grasshoppers, we can describe it truthfully. There are districts in California, as well as portions of the plains between Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, that literally swarm with Grasshoppers, and in such astonishing numbers that a man cannot put his foot to the ground, while walking there, without crushing great numbers. To the Indian they are a delicacy, and are caught and cooked in the following manner: A piece of ground is sought where they most abound, in the center of which an excavation is made, large and deep enough to prevent the insect from hopping out when once in. The entire party of Diggers, old and young, male and female, then surround as much of the adjoining grounds as they can, and each with a green bough in hand, whipping and thrashing on every side, gradually approach the center, driving the insects before them in countless multitudes, till at last all, or nearly all, are secured in the pit. In the mean time smaller excavations are made, answering the purpose of ovens, in which fires are kindled and kept up till the surrounding earth, for a short distance, becomes sufficiently heated, together with a flat stone, large enough to cover the oven. The Grasshoppers are now taken in coarse bags, and, after being thoroughly soaked in salt water for a few moments, are emptied into the oven and closed in. Ten or fifteen minutes suffice to roast them, when they are taken out and eaten without further preparation, and with much apparent relish, or, as is sometimes the case, reduced to powder and made into soup. And having from curiosity tasted, not of the soup, but of the roast, really, if one could divest himself of the idea of eating an insect as we do an oyster or shrimp, without other preparation than simple roasting, they would not be considered very bad eating, even by more refined epicures than the Digger Indians."
An item dated Tuesday, Aug. 21st, 1742, in the Gentleman's Magazine, states: "Great damage has been done to the pastures in the country, particularly about Bristol, by swarms of Grasshoppers; the like has happened in Pennsylvania to a surprising degree."
A common species in Sweden, the Decticus verrucivorus, is employed by the native peasants to bite the warts on their hands; the black fluid which it emits from its mouth being supposed to possess the power of making these excrescences vanish. This black fluid, from whatever Grasshoppers it may be emitted, is called by our boys "tobacco spit," which it much resembles; and they attribute to it also a wart-curing quality. When they catch one, they hold it between the thumb and fore-finger, and cry out,
Spit, spit tobacco spit, And then I'll let you go.
The exuviae of a Grasshopper called Semmi or Sebi, Kaempfer tells us, are preserved for medicinal uses, and sold publicly in shops both in Japan and China.
Dr. James, quoting Dioscorides, says: "Grasshoppers (Locusta Anglica minor, vulgatissima, Raii Ins. 60.) in a suffumigation relieve under a dysury, especially such as is incident to the female sex. The Locusta Africana is a very good antidote against the poison of the Scorpion."
After describing the Grasshopper of Italy, Brookes says: "It is often an amusement among the children of that country to catch this animal; and, by tickling the belly with their finger, it will whistle as long as they choose to make it."
In France, Grasshoppers are called Sauterelles, Hoppers; and in Germany, Heupferde, Hay-horses, because they generally feed on grasses, and their head has something of the form of a horse's head.
If Grasshoppers appear early in the summer in great numbers, they foretell famine and drought, — a superstition obtaining in Maryland.
- Gent. Mag., xii. 442.
- Good, Study of Med., iv. 515.
- Pinkerton's Voy. and Trav., vii. 705.
- Med. Dict.
- Nat. Hist. of Ins., p. 67.
Locustidae—Locusts
Moufet says: "That Locusts should be generated of the carcass of a mule or ass (as Plutarch reports in the life of Cleomenes) by putrefaction, I cannot with philosophers determine; first, because it was permitted to the Jews to feed on them; secondly, because no man ever yet was an eyewitness of such a putrid and ignoble generation of Locusts."
The first record of the ravages of the Locusts, which we find in history, is the account in the Book of Exodus of the visitation to the land of Egypt. "And the Locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt — very grievous were they. For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left; and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt."
It is to the Bible, too, we go to find the best account, for correctness and sublimity, of the appearance and ravages of these terrific insects. It is thus given by the prophet Joel: "A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth; the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their faces the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war, and they shall march every one on his ways and they shall not break their ranks; neither shall one thrust another, they shall walk every one in his path; and when they fall upon the sword they shall not be wounded. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall quake before them, the heavens shall tremble; the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining."
The usual way in which they are destroyed is also noticed by the prophet. "I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face towards the east sea, and his hinder part towards the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, because he hath done great things."
Paulus Orosius tells us that in the year of the world 3800, during the consulship of M. Plautius Hypsaeus, and M. Fulvius Flaccus, such infinite myriads of Locusts were blown from the coast of Africa into the sea and drowned, that being cast upon the shore in immense heaps they emitted a stench greater than could have been produced by the carcasses of one hundred thousand men. A general pestilence of all living creatures followed. And so great was this plague in Numidia, where Micipsa was king, that eighty thousand persons died; and on the sea-coast, near Carthage and Utica, about two hundred thousand were reported to have perished. Thirty thousand soldiers, appointed as the garrison of Africa, and stationed in Utica, were among the number. So violent was the destruction that the bodies of more than fifteen hundred of these soldiers, from one gate of the city, were carried and buried in the same day.