Termite queens in the East Indies are given alive to old men for strengthening the back.
Ephemeridae — Day-flies
The name of Ephemeridae has been given to the insects, so called, in consequence of the short duration of their lives, when they have acquired their final form. There are some of them which never see the sun; they are born after it is set, and die before it reappears on the horizon.
These insects, indifferently called also Day-flies and May-flies, usually make their appearance in the districts watered by the Seine and the Marne, in the month of August; and in such countless myriads, that the fishermen of these rivers believe they are showered down from heaven, and accordingly call the living cloud of them manna — manna for fish, not men. Reaumur once saw them descend in this region so fast, that the step on which he stood by the river's bank was covered by a layer four inches thick in a few minutes. He compares their falling to that of snow with the largest flakes.
Scopoli assures us that such swarms are produced every season in the neighborhood of some particular spots in the Duchy of Carniola, that the countrymen think they obtain but a small portion, unless every farmer can carry off about twenty cartloads of them into his fields for the purpose of a manure.
Libellulidae — Dragon-flies
On account of the long and slender body, peculiar to the insects of this family, they are with us sometimes called Devil's Darning-needles, but more commonly Dragon-flies. In Scotland they are known by the name of Flying Adders for the same reason. The English, from an erroneous belief that they sting horses, call them Horse-stingers. In France, from their light and airy motions, and brilliant, variegated dress, they are called Demoiselles; and in Germany, for the same reason, and that they hover over, and lived during their first stages in, water, Wasser-jungfern — Virgins of the Water. Another German name for them is Florfliegen — Gauze-flies, in allusion to their net-like wings. Our boys also call them Snake-feeders and Snake-doctors, in the belief that they wait upon snakes in the capacity of feeders and doctors; and so firm are they in this belief, that frequently I have been laughed at for asserting the contrary to them. The belief probably arose from the manner in which the Dragon-fly sometimes falls a prey to the snakes. Hovering over ponds, they are fond of alighting on little sticks and twigs just out of the water, and mistaking the heads of snakes, which probably swam there for the purpose, for such twigs, they are instantly caught by the snakes.
On the 30th and 31st of May, 1839, immense cloud-like swarms of Dragon-flies passed in rapid succession over the German town of Weimar and its neighborhood. They were the Libellula depressa, a species which, in general, is rather scarce in that part of Germany. The general direction of this migration was from south by west to north by east. The insects were in a vigorous state, and some of the flocks flew as high as 150 feet above the level of the River Ilm.
At Gottingen on June the 1st, at Eisenach on May the 30th and 31st of the same year, swarms of the same species were seen flying from east to west; and at Calais, June 14th, similar clouds, though of a different species, were noticed on their way toward the Netherlands. At Halle, also, on May 30th, a short time before a thunder-storm, swarms of the Dragon-fly, L. quadrimaculata, were seen by Dr. Buhle, flying very rapidly from south to north. The L. quadrimaculata is not generally found in the neighborhood of Halle.
This wonderful migration, for it is a phenomenon of rare occurrence, extended from the 51st to the 52d degree of latitude, and was observed within 27° 40' and 30° east of Ferro. But the instance of Calais renders it probable that it extended over a great part of Europe.
Another migration of Dragon-flies was observed at Weimar on the 28th of June, 1816. The insects, in this instance, belonged also to the L. depressa. They were taken then, as were they also in 1839, for locusts by the common people, and looked upon as the harbingers of famine and war.
In these migrations they followed the direction of the rivers, with the currents. They did not, however, always keep close by them, since they must spread over wide districts in order to subsist.
To account for the great multiplication of these insects, in the year 1839, is by no means difficult. From the beginning to the 21st of May (in the latter part of which month, it will be remembered, they appeared), the weather had been exceedingly rainy; rivers and lakes overflowed their banks and inundated immense areas of low grounds, whereby myriads of the larvae and pupae (which live entirely in water) of the Libellulae, which, under other circumstances, would have remained in deep water, and become the prey of their many enemies, fish, etc., were brought into shallow water, and hot weather following, from May 21st to May 29th, converted these shallows and swamps into true hotbeds for them. Their development into perfect insects was thus rendered rapid, so that, somewhat earlier than usual, they appeared, and in far greater, their undiminished, numbers; and, being very voracious in their appetite, as well in the imago as the pupa state, they were obliged to migrate immediately to satisfy it.
Mr. Gosse observed in Jamaica, Oct. 8th, 1845, a swarm of Dragon-flies in the air, about twenty feet from the level of the ground. They floated and danced about, over the stream of water that runs through Blue-fields, much in the manner of gnats, which they resembled also in their immense numbers. And Rev. T. J. Bowen, on one occasion, in descending the Ogun River (in the Yoruba country, Africa), met millions of Dragon-flies, about one-fourth of an inch in length, making their way up the country by following the course of the stream.
It is commonly said among us, that if a Dragon-fly be killed, there will soon be a death in the family of the killer.
Myrmeleonidae — Ant-lions
When children meet with the funnel-shaped pitfalls of the larva of the Ant-lion, Myrmeleon formicarius, they are wont to put their heads close to the ground and softly sing ooloo-ooloo-ooloo, till the larva, mistaking the sound for that of a fly escaping his trap, throws up a shower of sand to bring its supposed victim down again.
Ant-lions are held in great esteem in many sections of our country, so much so that they are not suffered to be in any way injured.
ORDER V — HYMENOPTERA
Uroceridae — Sirex
In a work called "Ephemerides des curieux de la Nature," is an observation apparently relative to this family of insects, which, if true, would be very extraordinary indeed. It is there said, that in the town of Czersk and its environs, there were seen in 1679 some unknown winged insects which, with their stings, mortally wounded both men and beasts. They fell abruptly upon men without provocation, and attached themselves to the naked parts of the body: the sting was immediately followed by a hard tumor, and if care was not taken of the wound within the first three hours, by hastily extracting the poison from it, the patient died in a few days after. These insects killed five and thirty men in this diocese, and a great number of oxen and horses. Toward the end of September, the winds brought some of them into a small town on the confines of Silesia and Poland; but they were so feeble on account of the cold, that they did but little mischief there. Eight days after, they all disappeared. These animals have all of them four wings, six feet, and carry under the belly a long sting provided with a sheath, which opens and separates in two. They make a very sharp noise in attacking men. Some of them are ornamented with yellow circles (Sirex gigas, or S. fusicornis, M. Latreille), and others are similar to them in all respects, but they have the back altogether black, and their stings are more venomous (S. spectrum or juvencus?). The author of these observations gives an extended description of the species with the yellow circles, which he accompanies with figures, in which the character of Sirex may be clearly distinguished.
Cynipidae — Gall-flies
In the spring of 1694, some Galls hung down like chains upon the oaks in Germany, and the common people, who had never observed them before, imagined them to be magical knots.
A very old and common superstition is, that every oak-apple contains either a maggot, a fly, or a spider: the first foretelling famine, the second war, and the third, the spider, pestilence. Matthiolus gravely affirms this conceit to be true; and the learned Sir Thomas Browne, in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, has thought it worth his while, with much gravity, to explode it. He, however, while combating one popular error, falls himself into another, for want of that philosophical knowledge of insects which later times have succeeded in obtaining. We pass this by, and hurry to his conclusion: "We confess the opinion may hold some verity in analogy, or emblematical fancy; for pestilence is properly signified by the spider, whereof some kinds are of a very venomous nature: famine by maggots, which destroy the fruits of the earth; and war not improperly by the fly, if we rest in the fancy of Homer, who compares the valiant Grecian unto a fly. Some verity it may also have in itself, as truly declaring the corruptive constitution in the present sap and nutrimental juice of the tree; and may consequently discover the disposition of the year according to the plenty or kinds of those productions; for if the putrefying juices of bodies bring forth plenty of flies and maggots, they give forth testimony of common corruption, and declare that the elements are full of the seeds of putrefaction, as the great number of caterpillars, gnats, and ordinary insects do also declare. If they run into spiders, they give signs of higher putrefaction, as plenty of vipers and scorpions are confessed to do; the putrefying materials producing animals of higher mischief according to the advance and higher strain of corruption."
Moufet says: "In oak acorns and spongy apples sometimes worms breed, and astrologers presage that year to be likely to produce a great famine and dearth. It is strange that Ringelbergius writes, lib. de experiment, that these worms may be fed to be as big as a serpent, with sheep's milk; yet Cardanus confirms the same, and shows the way to feed them. Lib. de rer. varietat."
There is a very curious operation performed at the present day in the Levant with one of these Gall-flies, which is termed caprification. The object of it is to hasten the maturity of figs; and the species employed for that purpose is the Cynips ficus caricae, or Cynips psenes of Linnaeus; it consists in placing on a fig-tree, which does not produce flowers or early figs, some of these last strung together with a thread. The insects which issue from them, full of fecundating dust, introduce themselves through the eye into the interior of the second figs, fecundate by this means all the grains, and provoke the ripening of the fruit. This operation, of which some authors have spoken with admiration, appeared to Hasselquist and Olivier, both competent observers, who have been on the spot, to be of no advantage whatsoever in fertilizing the fig; and scientific men of the present day generally hold that it cannot be of any utility, for each fig contains some small flowers toward the eye, capable of fecundating all the female flowers in the interior, and moreover this fruit will grow, ripen, and become excellent to eat even when the grains are not fecundated.