Pallas once saw such vast flights of the orange-tipped Butterfly, Pontia cardamines, in the vicinity of Winofka, that he at first mistook them for flakes of snow. At Barbados, some days previous to the hurricane in 1780, the trees and shrubs were entirely covered with a species of Butterfly of the most beautiful colors, so as to screen from the sight the branches, and even the trunks of the trees. In the afternoon before the gale came on, and when it was quite still, they all suddenly disappeared. The gale came on soon after. Darwin tells us that several times, when the "Beagle" had been some miles off the mouth of the Plata, and at other times when off the shores of Northern Patagonia, the air was filled with insects: that one evening, when the ship was about ten miles from the Bay of San Blas, vast numbers of Butterflies, in bands or flocks of countless myriads, extended as far as the eye could range. The seamen cried out "It was raining Butterflies," and such in fact, continues Darwin, was the appearance. Several species were in this flock, but they were chiefly of a kind very similar to, but not identical with, the common English Colias edusa. Some moths and hymenopterous insects accompanied the Butterflies; and a fine beetle (Calosoma) flew on board. Captain Adams mentions an extraordinary flight of small Butterflies, with spotted wings, which took place at Annamaboo, on the Guinea coast, after a tornado. The wind veered to the northward, and blew fresh from the land, with thick mist, which brought off from the shore so many of these insects, that for one hour the atmosphere was so filled with them as to represent a snow-storm driving past the vessel at a rapid rate, which was lying at anchor about two miles from the shore.
Mr. Charles J. Anderson encountered, in South-western Africa, for two consecutive days, such immense myriads of lemon-colored Butterflies that the sound caused by their wings was such as to resemble "the distant murmuring of waves on the sea-shore." They always passed in the same direction as the wind blew, and, as numbers were constantly alighting on the flowers, their appearance at such times was not unlike "the falling of leaves before a gentle autumnal breeze."
In Bermuda, October 10, 1847, the Butterfly, Terias lisa of Boisduval, suddenly appeared in great abundance, hundreds being seen in every direction. Previous to that occasion, Mr. Hurdis, the observer of this flight, had never met with this Butterfly. In the course of a few days, they had all disappeared.
In Ceylon, in the months of April and May, migrations of Butterflies (mostly the Callidryas hilaria, C. alcmeone, and G. pyranthe, with straggling individuals of the genus Euploea, E. coras, and E. prothoe) are quite frequent. Their passage is generally in a northeasterly direction. The flights of these delicate insects appear to the eye of a white or pale yellow hue, and apparently to extend miles in breadth, and of such prodigious length as to occupy hours, and even days, in their uninterrupted passage. A friend of Tennent, traveling from Kandy to Kornegalle, drove for nine miles through such a cloud of white Butterflies, which was passing across the road by which he went. Whence these immense numbers of Butterflies come no one knows, and whither going no one can tell. But the natives have a superstitious belief that their flight is ultimately directed to Adam's Peak, and that their pilgrimage ends on reaching that sacred mountain.
Moufet says: "Wert thou as strong as Milo or Hercules, and wert fenced or guarded about with an host of giants for force and valour, remember that such an army was put to the worst by an army of Butterflies flying in troops in the air, in the year 1104, and they hid the light of the sun like a cloud. Lycosthenes relates, that on the third day of August, 1543, that no hearb was left by reason of their multitudes, and they had devoured all the sweet dew and natural moisture, and they had burned up the very grasse that was consumed with their dry dung."
The most beautiful as well as pleasing emblem among the Egyptians was exhibited under the character of Psyche the Soul. This was originally no other than a Butterfly but it afterwards was represented as a lovely female child with the beautiful wings of that insect. The Butterfly, after its first and second stages as an egg and larva, lies for a season in a manner dead; and is inclosed in a sort of coffin. In this state it remains a shorter or longer period; but at last bursting its bonds, it comes out with new life, and in the most beautiful attire. The Egyptians thought this a very proper picture of the soul of man, and of the immortality, to which it aspired. But they made it more particularly an emblem of Osiris; who having been confined in an oak or coffin, and in a state of death, at last quitted his prison, and enjoyed a renewal of life. This symbol passed over to the Greeks and Romans, who also considered the Butterfly as the symbol of Zephyr.
Among the coats of arms of several of our most celebrated tribes of Indians, Baron Lahontan mentions one, that of the "Illinese," which bore a beech-leaf with a Butterfly argent.
The sight of a trio of Butterflies is considered an omen of death. An English superstition.
If a Butterfly enters a house, a death is sure to follow shortly in the family occupying it; if it enters through the window, the death will be that of an infant or very young person. As far as I know this superstition is peculiar to Maryland.
If a Butterfly alights upon your head, it foretells good news from a distance. This superstition obtains in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
The first Butterfly seen in the summer brings good luck to him who catches it. This notion prevails in New York.
In Western Pennsylvania, it is believed that if the chrysalides of Butterflies be found suspended mostly on the under sides of rails, limbs, etc., as it were to protect them from rain, that there will soon be much rain, or, as it is termed, a "rainy spell"; but, on the contrary, if they are found on twigs and slender branches, that the weather will be dry and clear.
Du Halde and Grosier tell us that the Butterflies of the mountain of Lo-few-shan, in the province of Quang-tong, China, are so much esteemed for their size and beauty, that they are sent to court, where they become a part of certain ornaments in the palaces. The wings of these Butterflies are very large, and their colors surprisingly diversified and lively. Dionysius Kao, a native of China, also remarks, in his Geographical Description of that Empire, that the Butterflies of Quang-tong are generally sent to the emperor, as they form a part of the furniture of the imperial cabinets.
Osbeck says the Chinese put up insects in boxes made of coarse wood, without covering, and lined with paper, which they carry round to sell; each box bringing half a piastre. Of the Butterflies, which were the principal insects thus sold, he enumerates twenty-one species.
The Chinese children make Butterflies of paper, with which "they play after night by sending them, like kites, into the air."
We learn from Captain Stedman, that even in the forests of Guiana, some people make Butterfly-catching their business, and obtain much money by it. They collect and arrange them in paper boxes, and send them off to the different cabinets of Europe.
Butterflies are now extensively worn by French and American ladies on their head-dresses.
From the relations of Sir Anthony Shirley, quoted in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, we learn that the kings of Persia were wont to hawk after Butterflies with sparrows and stares, or starlings, trained for the purpose; and we are also told that M. de Luisnes (afterward Prime Minister of France), in the nonage of Louis XIII., gained much upon him by making hawks catch little birds, and by making some of those little birds again catch Butterflies.
In the Zoological Journal, No. 13, it is recorded that at a meeting of the Linnaean Society, March 11, 1832, Mr. Stevens exhibited a remarkable freak of nature in a specimen of Vanessa urticae, which possessed five wings, the additional one being formed by a second, but smaller, hinder wing on one side.
J. A. de Mandelsloe, who made a voyage to the East Indies in 1639, tells us that not far from the Fort of Ternate grows a certain shrub, called by the Indians Catopa, from which falls a leaf, which, by degrees, is supposed to be metamorphosed into a Butterfly.
De Pauw tells us that, not long before his time, the French peasants entertained a kind of worship for the chrysalis of the caterpillar found on the great nettle (the pupa of Vanessa cardui), because they fancied that it revealed evident traces of Divinity; and quotes M. Des Landes in saying that the curates had even ornamented the altars with these pupae.
The Butterfly (Ang. Sax. Buttor-fleoge, or Buter-flege) is so named from the common yellow species, or from its appearing in the butter season. Its German names are Schmetterling, from schmetten, cream; and Molkendieh, the Whey-thief. The association with milk in its three forms, in butter, cream, and whey, is remarkable.
The African Bushmen eat the caterpillars of Butterflies; and the Natives of New Holland eat the caterpillars of a species of Moth, and also a kind of Butterfly, which they call Bugong, which congregates in certain districts, at particular seasons, in countless myriads. On these occasions the native blacks assemble from far and near to collect them; and after removing the wings and down by stirring them on the ground, previously heated by a large fire, winnowing them, eat the bodies, or store them up for use, by pounding and smoking them. The bodies of these Butterflies abound in oil, and taste like nuts. When first eaten, they produce violent vomitings and other debilitating effects; but these go off after a few days, and the natives then thrive and fatten exceedingly on this diet, for which they have to contend with a black crow, which is also attracted by the Butterflies, and which they dispatch with their clubs and use also as food.
Another practice in Australia is to follow up the flight of the Butterflies, and to light fires at nightfall beneath the trees in which they have settled. The smoke brings the insects down, when their bodies are collected and pounded together into a sort of fleshy loaf.
Bennet tells us the larva of a Lepidopterous insect (the Bugong?) that destroys the green-wattle (Acacia decurrens) is much sought after, and considered a delicacy, by the blacks of Australia. These people eat also the pink grubs found in the wattle-trees, either roasted or uncooked. Europeans, who have tasted of this dish, say it is not disagreeable.
Swammerdam, treating of the metamorphoses of larvae into pupae and thence into perfect insects, makes the following curious comparison: "The worms, after the manner of the brides in Holland, shut themselves up for a time, as it were to prepare, and render themselves more amiable, when they are to meet the other sex in the field of Hymen."
Sphingidae — Hawk-moths.
To the superstitious imaginations of the Europeans, the conspicuous markings on the back of a large evening moth, the Sphinx Atropos, represent the human skull, with the thigh-bones crossed beneath; hence is it called the Death's-head Moth, the Death's-head Phantom, the Wandering Death-bird, etc. Its cry, which closely resembles the noise caused by the creaking of cork, or the plaintive squeaking of a mouse, certainly more than enough to frighten the ignorant and superstitious, is considered the voice of anguish, the moaning of a child, the signal of grief; and it is regarded "not as the creation of a benevolent being, but as the device of evil spirits" — spirits, enemies to man, conceived and fabricated in the dark; and the very shining of its eyes is supposed to represent the fiery element whence it is thought to have proceeded. Flying into their apartments in the evening, it at times extinguishes the light, foretelling war, pestilence, famine, and death to man. The sudden appearance of these insects, we are informed by Latreille, during a season while the people were suffering from an epidemic disease, tended much to confirm the notions of the superstitious in that district, and the disease was attributed by them entirely to their visitation. Jaeger says, at a very recent day, that this large Moth first attracted his "attention during the prevalence of a severe and fatal epidemic, and of course nothing more was necessary than its appearance at such a time to induce an ignorant people to believe it the veritable prophet and forerunner of death. A curate in Bretagne, France," continues this author, "made a most horrible and fear-exciting description of this animal, describing the very loud and dreadful sound which it emitted as a sort of lamentation for the awful calamity which was coming on the earth." Reaumur informs us that all the members of a female convent in France were thrown into the greatest consternation at the appearance of one of these insects, which happened to fly in during the evening at one of the windows of the dormitory.