When the Archbishop of St. Andrews was cruelly murdered in 1679, "upon the opening of his tobacco box a living humming bee flew out," which was explained to be a familiar or devil. A Scottish woman declared that a child was poisoned by its grandmother, who, together with herself, were "in the shape of bum-bees," that the former carried the poison "in her cleugh, wings, and mouth." A great Bee constantly resorted to another after receiving the Satanic mark, and rested on it.
An anecdote is related by M. Reaumur respecting the thimble-shaped nest, formed of leaves, of the Carpenter-bee (Apis centuncularis?), which is a striking instance of the ridiculous superstition which prevails among the uneducated, and which even sometimes has no slight influence on those of better understandings. "In the beginning of July, 1736, the learned Abbe Nollet, then at Paris, was surprised by a visit from an auditor of the chamber of accounts, whose estate lay at a distant village on the borders of the Seine, a few leagues from Rouen. This gentleman came accompanied, among other domestics, by a gardener, whose face had an air of much concern. He had come to Paris in consequence of having found in his master's ground many rows of leaves, unaccountably disposed in a mystical manner, and which he could not but believe were there placed by witchcraft, for the secret destruction of his lord and family. He had, after recovering from his first consternation, shown them to the curate of the parish, who was inclined to be of a similar opinion, and advised him without delay to take a journey to Paris, and make his lord acquainted with the circumstance. This gentleman, though not quite so much alarmed as the honest gardener, could not feel himself at perfect ease, and therefore thought it advisable to consult his surgeon upon the business, who, though a man eminent in his profession, declared himself utterly unacquainted with the nature of what was shown him, but took the liberty of advising that the Abbe Nollet, as a philosopher, should be consulted, whose well-known researches in natural knowledge might perhaps enable him to elucidate the matter. It was in consequence of this advice that the Abbe received the visit above mentioned, and had the satisfaction of relieving all parties from their embarrassment, by showing them several nests formed on a similar plan by other insects, and assuring them that those in their possession were the work of insects also."
In an English paper, the Observer, of July 25, 1813, there is an account of a "swarm of Bees resting themselves on the inside of a lady's parasol." They were hived without any serious injury to the lady.
In the Annual Register, 1767, p. 117, there was published by M. Lippi, Licentiate in Physic of the army of Paris, an account of a petrified Beehive, discovered on the mountains of Siout, in Upper Egypt. Broken open it disclosed the larvae of Bees in the cells, hard and solid, and Bees themselves dried up like mummies. Honey was also found in the cells! The account is curious, but not entitled to much credit.
In the Liverpool Advertiser, and Times, of Nov. 24, 1817, there is a lengthy account of three Bees being found in a state of animation in a huge solid rock from the Western Point Quarry. Scientific attention was attracted, and as appears from the above-mentioned papers of Dec. 5, 1817, the mystery was cleared up by discovering in the rock "a sand hole" through which the insects had made their way.
ORDER VI.
LEPIDOPTERA.
Papilionidae — Butterflies.
The lepidopterous insects in general, soon after they emerge from the pupa state, and commonly during their first flight, discharge some drops of a red-colored fluid, more or less intense in different species, which, in some instances, where their numbers have been considerable, have produced the appearance of a "shower of blood," as this natural phenomenon is commonly called.
Showers of blood have been recorded by historians and poets as preternatural — have been considered in the light of prodigies, and regarded where they have happened as fearful prognostics of impending evils.
There are two passages in Homer, which, however poetical, are applicable to a rain of this kind; and among the prodigies which took place after the death of the great dictator, Ovid particularly mentions a shower of blood:
Saepe faces visae mediis ardere sub astris, Saepe inter nimbos guttae cecidere cruentae.
With threatening signs the lowering skies were filled, And sanguine drops from murky clouds distilled.
Among the numerous prodigies reported by Livy to have happened in the year 214 B.C., it is instanced that, at Mantua, a stagnating piece of water, caused by the overflowing of the River Mincius, appeared as of blood; and, in the cattle-market at Rome, a shower of blood fell in the Istrian Street. After mentioning several other remarkable phenomena that happened during that year, Livy concludes by saying that these prodigies were expiated, conformably to the answers of the Haruspices, by victims of the greater kinds, and supplication was ordered to be performed to all the deities who had shrines at Rome. Again it is stated by Livy, that many alarming prodigies were seen at Rome in the year 181 B.C., and others reported from abroad; among which was a shower of blood, which fell in the courts of the temples of Vulcan and Concord. After mentioning that the image of Juno Sospita shed tears, and that a pestilence broke out in the country, this writer adds, that these prodigies, and the mortality which prevailed, alarmed the Senate so much, that they ordered the consuls to sacrifice to such gods as their judgment should direct, victims of the larger kinds, and that the Decemvirs should consult their books. Pursuant to their direction, a supplication for one day was proclaimed to be performed at every shrine at Rome; and they advised, besides, and the Senate voted, and the consul proclaimed, that there should be a supplication and public worship for three days throughout all Italy. In the year 169 B.C., Livy also mentions that a shower of blood fell in the middle of the day. The Decemvirs were again called upon to consult their books, and again were sacrifices offered to the deities. The account, also, of Livy, of the bloody sweat, on some of the statues of the gods, must be referred to the same phenomenon; as the predilection of those ages to marvel, says Thomas Brown, and the want of accurate investigation in the cases recorded, as well as the rare occurrence of these atmospherical depositions in our own times, inclines us to include them among the blood-red drops deposited by insects.
In Stow's Annales of England, we have two accounts of showers of blood; and from an edition printed in London in 1592, we make our quotations: "Rivallus, sonne of Cunedagius, succeeded his father, in whose time (in the year 766 B.C.) it rained blood 3 dayes: after which tempest ensued a great multitude of venemous flies, which slew much people, and then a great mortalitie throughout this lande, caused almost desolation of the same." The second account is as follows: "In the time of Brithricus (A.D. 786) it rayned blood, which falling on men's clothes, appeared like crosses."
Hollinshed, Grafton, and Fabyan have also recorded these instances in their respective chronicles of England.
A remarkable instance of bloody rain is introduced into the very interesting Icelandic ghost story of Thorgunna. It appears that in the year of our Lord 1009, a woman called Thorgunna came from the Hebrides to Iceland, where she stayed at the house of Thorodd: and during the hay season, a shower of blood fell, but only, singularly, on that portion of the hay she had not piled up as her share, which so appalled her that she betook herself to her bed, and soon afterward died. She left, to finish the story, a remarkable will, which, from not being executed, was the cause of several violent deaths, the appearance of ghosts, and, finally, a legal action of ejectment against the ghosts, which, it need hardly be said, drove them effectually away.
In 1103, a shower of blood fell in Aquitaine; and Sleidan relates that in the year 1553 a vast multitude of Butterflies swarmed through a great part of Germany, and sprinkled plants, leaves, buildings, clothes, and men with bloody drops, as if it had rained blood. We learn also from Bateman's Doome, that these "drops of bloude upon hearbes and trees," in 1553, were deemed among the forewarnings of the deaths of Charles and Philip, dukes of Brunswick.
In Frankfort, in the year 1296, among other prodigies, some spots of blood led to a massacre of the Jews, in which ten thousand of these unhappy descendants of Abraham lost their lives.
In the beginning of July, 1608, an extensive shower of blood took place at Aix, in France, which threw the people of that place into the utmost consternation, and, which is a much more important fact, led to the first satisfactory and philosophical explanation of this phenomenon, but too late, alas! to save the Jews of Frankfort. This explanation was given by M. Peiresc, a celebrated philosopher of that place, and is thus referred to by his biographer, Gassendi: "Nothing in the whole year 1608 did more please him than that he observed and philosophized about, the bloody rain, which was commonly reported to have fallen about the beginning of July; great drops thereof were plainly to be seen, both in the city itself, upon the walls of the church-yard of the church, which is near the city wall, and upon the city walls themselves; also upon the walls of villages, hamlets, and towns, for some miles round about; for in the first place, he went himself to see those wherewith the stones were colored, and did what he could to come to speak with those husbandmen, who, beyond Lambesk, were reported to have been affrighted at the falling of said rain, that they left their work, and ran as fast as their legs could carry them into the adjacent houses. Whereupon, he found that it was a fable that was reported, touching those husbandmen. Nor was he pleased that naturalists should refer this kind of rain to vapours drawn up out of red earth aloft in the air, which congealing afterwards into liquor, fall down in this form because such vapours as are drawne aloft by heat, ascend without color, as we may know by the alone example of red roses, out of which the vapours that arise by heat are congealed into transparent water. He was less pleased with the common people, and some divines, who judged that it was the work of the devils and witches who had killed innocent young children; for this he counted a mere conjecture, possibly also injurious to the goodness and providence of God.
"In the mean while an accident happened, out of which he conceived he had collected the true cause thereof. For, some months before, he shut up in a box a certain palmer-worm which he had found, rare for its bigness and form; which, when he had forgotten, he heard a buzzing in the box, and when he opened it, found the palmer-worm, having cast its coat, to be turned into a beautiful Butterfly, which presently flew away, leaving in the bottom of the box a red drop as broad as an ordinary sous or shilling; and because this happened about the beginning of the same month, and about the same time an incredible multitude of Butterflies were observed flying in the air, he was therefore of opinion that such kind of Butterflies resting on the walls had there shed such like drops, and of the same bigness. Whereupon, he went the second time, and found, by experience, that those drops were not to be found on the house-tops, nor upon the round sides of the stones which stuck out, as it would have happened, if blood had fallen from the sky, but rather where the stones were somewhat hollowed, and in holes, where such small creatures might shroud and nestle themselves. Moreover, the walls which were so spotted, were not in the middle of towns, but they were such as bordered upon the fields, nor were they on the highest parts, but only so moderately high as Butterflies are commonly wont to fly.