Shapcot, to thee the fairy stateI with discretion dedicate;Because thou prizest things that areCurious and unfamiliar.Take first the feast: these dishes gone,We'll see the fairy court anon.A little mushroom table spread;After short prayers, they set on bread,A moon-parch'd grain of purest wheat,With some small glitt'ring grit to eatHis choicest bits with: then in a triceThey make a feast less great than nice.But all this while his eye is serv'd,We must not think his ear was starv'd;But that there was in place to stirHis spleen, the chirring grasshopper,The merry cricket, puling fly,The piping gnat for minstrelsy:And now we must imagine firstThe elves present, to quench his thirst,A pure seed pearl of infant dew,Brought and besweeten'd in a blueAnd pregnant violet; which done,His kitling eyes begin to runQuite through the table, where he spiesThe horns of papery butterflies,Of which he eats, and tastes a littleOf what we call the cuckoo's spittle:A little furze-ball pudding standsBy, yet not blessed by his hands,That was too coarse: but then forthwithHe ventures boldly on the pithOf sugar'd rush, and eats the sagAnd well be-strutted bee's sweet bag;Gladding his palate with some storeOf emmet's eggs: what would he more?But beards of mice, a newt's stew'd thigh,A bloated earwig and a fly;With the red-capp'd worm that's shutWithin the concave of a nut,Brown as his tooth: a little mothLate fatten'd in a piece of cloth;With wither'd cherries; mandrakes' ears;Moles' eyes; to these the slain stag's tears;The unctuous dewlaps of a snail;The broke heart of a nightingaleO'ercome in music;——----This done, commendedGrace by his priest, the feast is ended.—
Shapcot, to thee the fairy stateI with discretion dedicate;Because thou prizest things that areCurious and unfamiliar.Take first the feast: these dishes gone,We'll see the fairy court anon.A little mushroom table spread;After short prayers, they set on bread,A moon-parch'd grain of purest wheat,With some small glitt'ring grit to eatHis choicest bits with: then in a triceThey make a feast less great than nice.But all this while his eye is serv'd,We must not think his ear was starv'd;But that there was in place to stirHis spleen, the chirring grasshopper,The merry cricket, puling fly,The piping gnat for minstrelsy:And now we must imagine firstThe elves present, to quench his thirst,A pure seed pearl of infant dew,Brought and besweeten'd in a blueAnd pregnant violet; which done,His kitling eyes begin to runQuite through the table, where he spiesThe horns of papery butterflies,Of which he eats, and tastes a littleOf what we call the cuckoo's spittle:A little furze-ball pudding standsBy, yet not blessed by his hands,That was too coarse: but then forthwithHe ventures boldly on the pithOf sugar'd rush, and eats the sagAnd well be-strutted bee's sweet bag;Gladding his palate with some storeOf emmet's eggs: what would he more?But beards of mice, a newt's stew'd thigh,A bloated earwig and a fly;With the red-capp'd worm that's shutWithin the concave of a nut,Brown as his tooth: a little mothLate fatten'd in a piece of cloth;With wither'd cherries; mandrakes' ears;Moles' eyes; to these the slain stag's tears;The unctuous dewlaps of a snail;The broke heart of a nightingaleO'ercome in music;——
----This done, commendedGrace by his priest, the feast is ended.—
Having considered insects as adding to the general stock of food, I shall next request your attention while I detail to you how far the medical science is indebted to them. Had I addressed you a century ago, I could have made this an ample history. Amongst scores of infallible panaceas, I should have recommended the woodlouse as a solvent and aperient; powder of silkworm for vertigo and convulsions; millepedes against the jaundice; earwigs to strengthen the nerves; powdered scorpion for the stone and gravel; fly-water for disorders in the eyes; and the tick for erysipelas. I should have prescribedfive gnats as an excellent purge; wasps as diuretics; lady-birds for the colic and measles; the cockchafer for the bite of a mad dog and the plague; and ants and their acid I should have loudly praised as incomparable against leprosy and deafness, as strengthening the memory, and giving vigour and animation to the whole bodily frame[595]. In short, I could have easily added to the miserably meager list of modern pharmacopœias, a catalogue of approved insect-remedies for every disease and evil
"that flesh is heir to!"
"that flesh is heir to!"
But these good times are long gone by. You would, I fear, laugh at my prescriptions notwithstanding the great authorities I could cite in their favour; and even doubt the efficacy of a more modern specific for tooth-ache, promulgated by a learned Italian professor[596], who assures us that a finger once imbued with the juices ofRhinobatus antiodontalgicus(a name enough to give one the tooth-ache to pronounce it) will retain its power of curing this disease for a twelvemonth! I must content myself, therefore, with expatiating on the virtues of the very few insects to which the sons of Hippocrates and Galen now deign to have recourse. At the same time I cannot help observing that their proscription of the remainder may have been too indiscriminate. Mankind are apt to run from one extreme to the other. From having ascribed too much efficacy to insect-remedies, we may now ascribe too little. Many insects emit very powerful odours, and some produce extraordinary effects upon the human frame; and it is an idea not altogether to be rejected,that they may concentrate into a smaller compass the properties and virtues of the plants upon which they feed, and thus afford medicines more powerful in operation than the plants themselves. It is at least worth while to institute a set of experiments with this view.
Medicine at the present day is indebted to an ant (Formica bispinosa, Oliv.fungosa, F.) for a kind of lint collected by that insect from the Bombax or silk cotton-tree, which as a styptic is preferable to the puff-ball, and at Cayenne is successfully used to stop the blood in the most violent hæmorrhages[597]; and gum ammoniac, according to Mr. Jackson[598], oozes out of a plant like fennel, from incisions made in the bark by a beetle with a large horn. But with these exceptions, (in which the remedy is rather collected than produced by insects,) and that of spiders' webs, which are said to have been recently administered with success in ague, the only insects which directly supply us with medicine are some species ofCantharisandMylabris. These beetles however amply make up in efficacy for their numerical insignificance; and almost any article could be better spared from the Materia Medica than one of the former usually known under the name ofCantharides, which is not only of incalculable importance as a vesicatory, but is now administered internally in many cases with very good effect. In Europe, the only insect used with this view is theCantharis vesicatoria; but in America theC. cinereaandvittata(which are extremely common and noxious insects, while theC. vesicatoriais sold there at sixteendollars the pound,) have been substituted with great success, and are said to vesicate more speedily, and with less pain, at the same time that they cause no strangury[599]: and in China they have long employed theMylabris Cichorei, which seems to have been considered the most powerful vesicatory amongst the ancients, who however appear to have been acquainted with the commonCantharis vesicatoriaalso, and to have made use of it, as well as ofCetonia aurataand some other insects mentioned by Pliny[600]. Another species ofMylabrishas been described by Major-general Hardwicke in theAsiatic Transactions[601], plentiful in all parts of Bengal, Bahar, and Oude, which is fully as efficacious as the common Spanish fly.
But it is as supplying products valuable in the arts and manufactures, that we are chiefly indebted to insects. In adverting to them in this view, I shall not dwell upon the articles derived from a few species in particular districts, and confined to these alone, such as the soap which in some parts of Africa is manufactured from a beetle (Chlænius saponarius[602]); the oil which Molina tells us is obtained in Chili from large globular cellules found upon the wild rosemary, and supposed to be produced by a kind of gall-fly[603]; and the manure for which Scopoli informs us the hosts of Ephemeræ that annually emerge in the month of June from the Laz, a river in Carniola, are employed by the husbandmen, who think they have had a bad harvest unless every one has collected at least twenty loads[604].
Still less is it my intention to detain you in consideringthe purpose to which in the West Indies and South America the fire-flies are put by the natives, who employ them as lanterns in their journeys, and lamps in their houses[605];—or the use as ornaments to which some insects are ingeniously applied by the ladies, who in China embroider their dresses with the elytra and crust of a brilliant species of beetle (Buprestis vittata); in Chili and the Brazils form splendid necklaces of the goldenChrysomelidæand brilliant diamond beetles, &c.[606]; in some parts of the continent string together for the same purpose the burnished violet-coloured thighs ofGeotrupes stercorarius, &c.[607]; and in India, as I am informed by Major Moor and Captain Green, even have recourse to fire-flies, which they inclose in gauze and use as ornaments for their hair when they take their evening walks. I shall confine my details to the more important and general products which they supply to the arts, beginning with one indispensable to our present correspondence, and adverting in succession to the insects affordingdyes,lac,wax,honey, andsilk.
No present that insects have made to the arts is equal in utility and universal interest, comes more home to our best affections, or is the instrument of producing more valuable fruits of human wisdom and genius, than the product of the animal to which I have just alluded. You will readily conjecture I mean the fly that gives birth to thegall-nut, from which ink is made,—How infinitely are we indebted to this little creature, which at once enables us to converse with our absent friends and connexionsbe their distance from us ever so great, and supplies the means by which, to use the poet's language we can
"——give to airy nothingA local habitation and a name!"
"——give to airy nothingA local habitation and a name!"
enabling the poet, the philosopher, the politician, the moralist, and the divine, to embody their thoughts for the amusement, instruction, direction and reformation of mankind.—The insect which produces the gall-nut is of the genusCynipsof Linné, but was not known to him or to Fabricius. Olivier first described it under the name ofDiplolepis gallæ tinctoriæ[608]. The galls originate on the leaves of a species of oak (Quercus infectoria,) very common throughout Asia Minor, in many parts of which they are collected by the poorer inhabitants and exported from Smyrna, Aleppo, and other ports in the Levant, as well as from the East Indies, whither a part of those collected are now carried. The galls most esteemed are those known in commerce under the name ofblue galls, being the produce of the first gathering before the fly has issued from the gall. It will not be uninteresting to you to know, that from these when bruised may occasionally be obtained perfect specimens of the insect, one of which I lately procured in this way. The galls which have escaped the first searches, and from most of which the fly has emerged, are calledwhite galls, and are of a very inferior quality, containing less of the astringent principle than the blue galls in the proportion of two to three[609]. The white and blue galls are usuallyimported mixed in about equal proportions, and are then called galls in sorts. If no substitute equal to galls as a constituent part of ink has been discovered, the same may be said of these productions as one of the most important of our dyeing materials constantly employed in dyeing black. It is true that this colour may be communicated without galls, but not at once so cheaply and effectually, as is found by their continued large consumption notwithstanding all the improvements in the art of dyeing. Other dyeing drugs are afforded by insects, the principal of which areChermes,the Scarlet Grain of Poland,Cochineal,Lac-lake, andLac-dye, all of which are furnished by different species ofCoccus.
The first of these, theCoccus Ilicis, found abundantly upon a small species of evergreen oak (Quercus coccifera) common in the south of France, and many other parts of the world, has been employed to impart a blood red or crimson dye to cloth from the earliest ages, and was known to the Phœnicians before the time of Moses under the name ofTolaorThola(ולעת), to the Greeks under that ofCoccus(Κοκκος), and to the Arabians and Persians under that ofKermesorAlkermes; whence, as Beckmann has shown, and from the epithetvermiculatumgiven to it in the middle ages, when it was ascertained to be the produce of a worm, have sprung the Latincoccineus, the Frenchcramoisiandvermeil, and ourcrimsonandvermilion. It was most probably with this substance that the curtains of the tabernacle (Exod. xxvi. &c.) were dyed deep red (which the word scarlet, as our translators have rendered תולעת שני, then implied, not the colour now so called, which was not known in James the First's reign when the Bible was translated)—it was with thisthat the Grecians and Romans produced their crimson; and from the same source were derived the imperishable reds of the Brussels and other Flemish tapestries. In short, previous to the discovery of cochineal, this was the material universally used for dyeing the most brilliant red then known; and though that production of the New World has, in some respects undeservedly[610], supplanted it in Europe, where it is little attended to except by the peasantry of the provinces in which it is found, it still continues to be employed in a great part of India and Persia[611].
The scarlet grain of Poland (Coccus polonicus) is found on the roots of the perennial knawel (Scleranthus perennis, a scarce plant in this country, but abundant in the neighbourhood of Elvedon in Suffolk), and was at one time collected in large quantities for dyeing red in the Ukraine, Lithuania, &c. But though still employed by the Turks and Armenians for dyeing wool, silk and hair, as well as for staining the nails of women's fingers, it is now rarely used in Europe except by the Polish peasantry. A similar neglect has attended the Coccus found on the roots ofPoterium Sanguisorba[612], which was used by the Moors for dyeing silk and wool a rose colour;and theCoccus Uva-ursi, which with alum affords a crimson dye[613].
Cochineal, theCoccus Cacti, is doubtless the most valuable product for which the dyer is indebted to insects, and with the exception perhaps of indigo the most important of dyeing materials. Though the Spaniards found it employed by the natives of Mexico, where alone it is cultivated, on their arrival in that country in 1518, its true nature was not accurately ascertained for nearly two centuries afterwards. Acosta indeed as early as 1530, and Herrara and Hernandez subsequently, had stated it to be an insect. But led apparently by its external appearance, notwithstanding the conjectures of Lister and assertions of Pere Plumier to the contrary, it was believed by Europeans in general to be the seed of a plant, until Hartsoeker in 1694, Leeuwenhoek and De la Hire in 1704, and Geoffroy, ten years later, by dissections and microscopical observations incontrovertibly proved its real origin[614].
This insect, which comes to us in the form of a reddish shrivelled grain covered with a white powder or bloom, feeds on a particular kind of Indian fig, called in Mexico, where alone cochineal is produced in any quantity, Nopal, which has always been supposed to be theCactus cochinilifer, but according to Humboldt is unquestionably a distinct species, which bears fruit internally white.
Cochineal is chiefly cultivated in the Intendency of Oaxaca; and some plantations contain 50 or 60,000 nopals in lines, each being kept about four feet high for more easy access in collecting the dye. The cultivatorsprefer the most prickly varieties of the plant, as affording protection to the cochineal from insects; to prevent which from depositing their eggs in the flower or fruit, both are carefully cut off. The greatest quantity, however, of cochineal employed in commerce, is produced in small nopaleries belonging to Indians of extreme poverty, calledNopaleros. They plant their nopaleries in cleared ground on the slopes of mountains or ravines two or three leagues distant from their villages; and when properly cleaned, the plants are in a condition to maintain the cochineal in the third year. As a stock, the proprietor in April or May purchases branches or joints of theTuna de Castilla, laden with small cochineal insects recently hatched (Semilla). These branches, which may be bought in the market of Oaxaca for about three francs (2s.6d.) the hundred, are kept for twenty days in the interior of their huts, and then exposed to the open air under a shed, where from their succulency they continue to live for several months. In August and September the mother cochineal insects, now big with young, are placed in nests made of a species ofTillandsiacalledPaxtle, which are distributed upon the nopals. In about four months the first gathering, yielding twelve for one, may be made, which in the course of the year is succeeded by two more profitable harvests. This period of sowing and harvest refers chiefly to the districts of Sola and Zimatlan. In colder climates the semilla is not placed upon the nopals until October or even December, when it is necessary to shelter the young insects by covering the nopals with rush mats, and the harvests are proportionably later and unproductive. In the immediate vicinity of the town of Oaxaca the Nopaleros feedtheir cochineal insects in the plains from October to April, and at the beginning of the remaining months, during which it rains in the plains, transport them to their plantations of nopals in the neighbouring mountains, where the weather is more favourable.
Much care is necessary in the tedious operation of gathering the cochineal from the nopals, which is performed with a squirrel or stag's tail by the Indian women, who for this purpose squat down for hours together beside one plant; and notwithstanding the high price of the cochineal, it is to be doubted if the cultivation would be profitable were the value of labour more considerable.
The cochineal insects are killed either by throwing them into boiling water; by exposing them in heaps to the sun; or by placing them in the ovens (Temazealli) used for vapour baths. The last of these methods, which is least in use, preserves the whitish powder on the body of the cochineal, which being thus less subject to the adulterations so often practised by the Indians, bears a higher price both in America and Europe[615].
The quantity at present annually exported from South America is said by Humboldt to be 32,000 arrobas, there worth 500,040l.sterling[616]—a vast amount to arise from so small an insect, and well calculated to show us the absurdity of despising any animals on account of their minuteness. So important is the acquisition of this insect (of which the Spanish government is extremely jealous) regarded, that the Court of Directors ofthe East India Company have offered a reward of 6000l.to any one who shall introduce it into India, where hitherto the Company have only succeeded in procuring from Brazil the wild kind producing thesylvestrecochineal, which is of very inferior value.
Lac, is the produce of an insect formerly supposed to be a kind of ant or bee[617], but now ascertained to be a species ofCoccus, whose history will be adverted to when I come to speak of the secretions of insects; and it is collected from various trees in India, where it is found so abundantly, that, were the consumption ten times greater than it is, it could be readily supplied. This substance is made use of in that country in the manufacture of beads, rings, and other female ornaments. Mixed with sand it forms grind-stones; and added to lamp- or ivory-black, being first dissolved in water with the addition of a little borax, it composes an ink not easily acted upon when dry by damp or water. In this country, where it is distinguished by the namesstick-lacwhen in its native state unseparated from the twigs to which it adheres;seed-lacwhen separated, pounded, and the greater part of the colouring matter extracted by water;lump-lacwhen melted and made into cakes; andshell-lacwhen strained and formed into transparent laminæ;—it has hitherto been chiefly employed in the composition of varnishes, japanned ware, and sealing-wax: but within these few years it has been applied to a still more important purpose, originally suggested by Dr. Roxburgh—that of a substitute for cochineal in dyeing scarlet. The first preparations from it with this view were made in consequence of a hint from Dr. Bancroft,and large quantities of a substance termedlac-lake, consisting of the colouring matter of stick-lac precipitated from an alkaline lixivium by alum, were manufactured at Calcutta and sent to this country, where at first the consumption was so considerable, that in the three years previous to 1810 Dr. Bancroft states that the sales of it at the India House equalled in point of colouring matter half a million of pounds weight of cochineal. More recently, however, a new preparation of lac colour, under the name oflac-dye, has been imported from India, which has been substituted for the lac-lake, and with such advantage, that the East India Company are said to have saved in a few months 14,000l.in the purchase of scarlet cloths dyed with this colour and cochineal conjointly, and without any inferiority in the colour obtained[618].
Some other insects besides the Cocci afford dyes. Reaumur tells us, that in the Levant, Persia, and China, they use the galls of a particular species ofAphisfor dyeing silk crimson, which he thinks might lead us to try experiments with those of our own country[619]. That dyes might be thus obtained seems probable from an observation of Linné's, in his Lapland Tour, upon the galls produced byAphis Pinion the extremities of the leaves of the spruce-fir, which, he informs us, when arrived at maturity burst asunder, and discharge an orange-coloured powder which stains the clothes[620]; and Mr. Sheppard confirms this observation, the galls of this Aphis abounding upon fir-trees in his garden. In fact, we are told thatTerminalia citrina, a tree common in India,yields a species of gall, the product of an insect, which is sold in every market, being one of the most useful dyeing drugs known to the natives, who dye their best and most durable yellow with it[621]. A species of mite (Trombidium tinctorium), a native of Guinea and Surinam, is also employed as a dye; and it would be worth while to try whether ourT. holosericeum, so remarkable for the dazzling brilliancy of its crimson and the beautiful velvet texture of its down, which seems nearly related toT. tinctorium, would not also afford a valuable tincture. It is not likely, perhaps, that many better and cheaper dyes than we now possess can be obtained from insects; but Reaumur has suggested that water-colours of beautiful tints, not otherwise easily obtainable, might be procured from the excrements of the larvæ of the common clothes-moth, which retain the colour of the wool they have eaten unimpaired in its lustre, and mix very well with water. To get a fine red, yellow, blue, green, or any other colour or shade of colour, we should merely have to feed our larvæ with cloth of that tint[622].
Wax, so valuable for many minor purposes, and deemed with us so indispensable to the comfort of the great, is of still more importance in those parts of Europe and America in which it forms a considerable branch of trade and manufacture, as an article of extensive use in the religious ceremonies of the inhabitants. Humboldt informs us, that not fewer than 25,000 arrobas, value upwards of 83,000l., are annually exported from Cuba to New Spain, where the quantity consumed in the festivals of the Church is immense even in the smallest villages;and that the total export of the same island in 1803 was not less than 42,670 arrobas, worth upwards of 130,000l.[623]Nearly the whole of the wax employed in Europe, and by far the greater part of that consumed in America, is the produce of the common hive-bee; but in the latter quarter of the globe a quantity by no means trifling is obtained from various wild species. According to Don F. de Azara, the inhabitants of Santiago del Estero gather every year not less than 14,000 pounds of a whitish wax from the trees of Chaco[624].
In China wax is also produced by another insect, which from the description of it by the Abbé Grosier seems to be a species ofCoccus. With this insect the Chinese stock the two kinds of tree (Kan-la-chuandChoni-la-chu) on which alone it is found, and which always afterwards retain it. Towards the beginning of winter small tumours are perceived, which increase until as big as a walnut. These are the nests (abdomens of the females) filled with the eggs that are to give birth to theCocci, which when hatched disperse themselves over the leaves, and perforate the bark under which they retire. The wax (calledPe-la, white wax, because so by nature,) begins to appear about the middle of June. At first a few filaments like fine soft wool are perceived, rising from the bark round the body of the insect, and these increase more and more until the gathering, which takes place before the first hoar frosts in September. The wax is carried to court, and reserved for the emperor, the princes, and chief mandarins. If an ounce of it be added to a pound of oil, it forms a wax little inferior to that made by bees. The physicians employ it in several diseases; and the Chinese, when about to speakin public and assurance is necessary, previously eat an ounce of it to prevent swoonings[625]; a use of it for which happily our less diffident orators have no call. This account is in the main confirmed by Geomelli Careri, except that he calls the wax-insect awormwhich bores to the pith of certain trees; and says that it produces a sufficient supply for the whole empire, the different provinces of which are furnished from Xantung, where it is bred in the greatest perfection, with a stock of eggs[626]. A very different origin, however, is assigned to thePe-laby Sir George Staunton, who informs us that it is produced by a species of Cicada (Flata limbata), which in its larva state feeds upon a plant like the privet, strewing upon the stem a powder, which when collected forms the wax[627]. But as he merely states that this powder was "supposed" to form it, and does not himself appear to have made the experiment of dissolving it in oil, it is most probable that his information was incorrect, and that Grosier's statement is the true one.
This probability is nearly converted into certainty by the fact that many Aphides and Cocci secrete a wax-like substance, and that a kind of wax very analogous to thePe-la, and of the same class with bees-wax, only containing more carbon, is actually produced in India by a nondescript species of Coccus remarkable for providing itself with a small quantity of honey like our bees. This substance, for specimens of which I am indebted to the kindness of Sir Joseph Banks, was first noticed by Dr. Anderson, and called by himwhite-lac. It could be obtained in any quantity from the neighbourhood of Madras, and at a much cheaper rate than bees-wax: but the experimentsof Dr. Pearson do not afford much ground for supposing that it can be advantageously employed in making candles[628]. De Azara speaks of a firm white wax apparently similar, and the produce of an insect of the same tribe, which is collected in South America in the form of pearl-like globules from the small branches of theQuabirâmý, a small shrub two or three feet high[629].
Insects in some countries not only furnish the natives with wax but withresin, which is used instead of tar for their ships. Molina informs us that, at Coquimbo in Chili, resin, either the product of an insect or the consequence of an insect's biting off the buds of a particular species of Origanum, is collected in large quantities. The insect in question is a small smooth red caterpillar about half an inch long, which changes into a yellowish moth with black stripes upon the wings (Phal. ceraria, Molina). Early in the spring vast numbers of these caterpillars collect on the branches of theChila, where they form their cells of a kind of soft white wax or resin, in which they undergo their transformations. This wax, which is at first very white, but by degrees becomes yellow and finally brown, is collected in autumn by the inhabitants, who boil it in water, and make it up into little cakes for market[630].
Honey, another well-known product of insects, has lost much of its importance since the discovery of sugar; yet at the present day, whether considered as a delicious article of food, or the base of a wholesome vinous beverage of home manufacture, it is of no mean value even in this country; and in many inland parts of Europe,where its saccharine substitute is much dearer than with us, few articles of rural economy, not of primary importance, would be dispensed with more reluctantly. In the Ukraine some of the peasants have 4 or 500 bee-hives, and make more profit of their bees than of corn[631]; and in Spain the number of bee-hives is said to be incredible; a single parish priest was known to possess 5000[632].
The domesticated or hive-bee, to which we are indebted for this article, is the same according to Latreille in every part of Europe, except in some districts of Italy, where a different species (Apis ligusticaof Spinola) is kept—the same probably that is cultivated in the Morea and the isles of the Archipelago[633]. Honey is obtained, however, from many other species both wild and domestic. What is called rock honey in some parts of America, which is as clear as water and very thin, is the produce of wild bees, which suspend their clusters of thirty or forty waxen cells, resembling a bunch of grapes, to a rock[634]: and in South America large quantities are collected from the nests built in trees byTrigona Amalthea, and other species of this genus recently separated from Apis[635]; under which probably should be included theBamburos, whose honey, honest Robert Knox informs us, whole towns in Ceylon go into the woods to gather[636]. According to Azara, one of the chief articles of food of the Indians who live in the woods of Paraguay is wild honey[637].Captain Green observes that, in the island of Bourbon, where he was stationed for some time, there is a bee which produces a kind of honey much esteemed there. It is quite of a green colour, of the consistency of oil, and to the usual sweetness of honey superadds a certain fragrance. It is called green honey, and is exported to India, where it bears a high price[638]. One of the species that has probably been attended to ages before our hive-bee, isApis fasciataof Latreille, a kind so extensively cultivated in Egypt, that Niebuhr states he fell in upon the Nile, between Cairo and Damietta, with a convoy of 4000 hives, which were transporting from a region where the season for flowers had passed, to one where the spring was later[639]. Columella says that the Greeks in like manner sent their bee-hives every year from Achaia into Attica; and a similar custom is not unknown in Italy, and even in this country in the neighbourhood of heaths. In Madagascar, according to Latreille, the inhabitants have domesticatedApis unicolor;A. indicais cultivated in India at Pondicherry and in Bengal;A. Adansonii, Latr. at Senegal[640]; and Fabricius thinks thatA. acraensis(Centris, Syst. Piez.)laboriosa, and others in the East and West Indies, might be domesticated with greater advantage than evenA. mellifica[641].
The last, and doubtless the most valuable, product of insects to which I have to advert isSilk. To estimate justly the importance of this article, it is not sufficient to view it as an appendage of luxury unrivalled for richness, lustre, and beauty; and without which courts would lose half their splendour. We must consider it, what it actually is, as the staple article of cultivation in many large provinces in the South of Europe, amongst the inhabitants of which the prospect of a deficient crop causes as great alarm as a scanty harvest of grain with us; and after giving employment to tens of thousands in its first production and transportation, as furnishing subsistence to hundreds of thousands more in its final manufacture; and thus becoming one of the most important wheels that give circulation to national wealth.
But we must not confine our view to Europe. When silk was so scarce in this country, that James the First, while king of Scotland, was forced to beg of the Earl of Mar the loan of a pair of silk stockings to appear in before the English ambassador, enforcing his request with the cogent appeal, "For ye would not, sure, that your king should appear as a scrub before strangers—" Nay, long before this period, even prior to the time that silk was valued at its weight of gold at Rome, and the Emperor Aurelian refused his empress a robe of silk because of its dearness—the Chinese peasantry in some of the provinces, millions in number, were clothed with this material; and for some thousand years to the present time, it has been both there and in India, (where a class whose occupation was to attend silk-worms appears to have existed from time immemorial, being mentioned in the oldest Sanscritbooks[642],) one of the chief objects of cultivation and manufacture. You will admit, therefore, that when nature
"—set to work millions of spinning worms,That in their green shops weave the smooth-hair'd silkTo deck her sons[643],"
"—set to work millions of spinning worms,That in their green shops weave the smooth-hair'd silkTo deck her sons[643],"
she was conferring upon them a benefit scarcely inferior to that consequent upon the gift of wool to the fleecy race, or a fibrous rind to the flax or hemp plants; and that mankind is not under much less obligation to Pamphila, who, according to Aristotle, was the discoverer of the art of unwinding and weaving silk, than to the inventors of the spinning of those products[644].
It seems to have been in Asia that silk was first manufactured; and it was from thence that the ancients obtained it, calling it, from the name of the country whence it was supposed to be brought, Sericum. Of its origin they were in a great measure ignorant, some supposing it to be the entrails of a spider-like insect with eight legs, which was fed for four years upon a kind of paste, and then with the leaves of the green willow, until it burst with fat[645]; others, that it was the produce of a worm which built clay nests and collected wax[646]; Aristotle, with more truth, that it was unwound from thepupaof a large horned caterpillar[647]. Nor was the mode of producingand manufacturing this precious material known to Europe until long after the Christian æra, being first learnt about the year 550 by two monks, who procured in India the eggs of the silk-worm moth, with which, concealing them in hollow canes, they hastened to Constantinople, where they speedily multiplied, and were subsequently introduced into Italy, of which country silk was long a peculiar and staple commodity. It was not cultivated in France until the time of Henry the Fourth, who, considering that mulberries grew in his kingdom as well as in Italy, resolved, in opposition to the opinion of Sully, to attempt introducing it, and fully succeeded.
The whole of the silk produced in Europe, and the greater proportion of that manufactured in China, is obtained from the common silk-worm; but in India considerable quantities are procured from the cocoons of the larvæ of other moths. Of these the most important species known are the Tusseh and Arindy silk-worms, of which an interesting history is given by Dr. Roxburgh in theLinnean Transactions[648]. These insects are both natives of Bengal. The first (Attacus Paphia,) feeds upon the leaves of theJugube tree(Rhamnus Jujuba) orByerof the Hindoos, and of theTerminalia alata glabra, Roxburgh, theAsseenof the Hindoos, and is found in such abundance as from time immemorial to have afforded a constant supply of a very durable, coarse, dark-coloured silk, which is woven into a cloth calledTusseh-doot'hies, much worn by the Brahmins and other sects; and would doubtless be highly useful to the inhabitants of many parts of America and of the South of Europe, where a light and cool, and at the same time cheap anddurable dress, such as this silk furnishes, is much wanted. The durability of this silk is indeed astonishing. After constant use for nine or ten years it does not show any signs of decay. These insects are thought by the natives of so much consequence, that they guard them by day to preserve them from crows and other birds, and by night from the bats.—The Arindy silk-worm (Attacus? Cynthia, Drury), which feeds solely on the leaves of thePalma Christi, produces remarkably soft cocoons, the silk of which is so delicate and flossy, that it is impracticable to wind it off: it is therefore spun like cotton; and the thread thus manufactured is woven into a coarse kind of white cloth of a loose texture, but of still more incredible durability than the last, the life of one person being seldom sufficient to wear out a garment made of it. It is used not only for clothing, but for packing fine cloths, &c. Some manufacturers in England to whom the silk was shown, seemed to think that it could be made here into shawls equal to any received from India.
Other species, as may be inferred from an extract of a letter given in Young'sAnnals of Agriculture[649], are known in China, and have been recently introduced into India. "We have obtained," says the writer, "a monthly silk-worm from China, which I have reared with my own hands, and in twenty-five days have had the cocoons in my basins, and by the twenty-ninth or thirty-first day a new progeny feeding in my trays. This makes it a mine to whoever would undertake the cultivation of it."
Whether it will ever be expedient to attempt the breeding of the larvæ of any European moths, asCatocala pacta,Sponsa, &c. proposed with this view byFabricius[650], seems doubtful, though certainly many of them afford a very strong silk, and might be readily propagated; and I have now in my possession some thread more like cotton than silk spun by the larva of a moth, which when I was a very young entomologist I observed (if my memory does not deceive me) upon the Euonymus, and from the twigs of which (not the cocoon) I unwound it. It is even asserted that in Germany a manufacture of silk from the cocoons of the emperor moth (Saturnia Pyri?) has been established[651]. There seems no question, however, that silk might be advantageously derived from many native silk-worms in America. An account is given in thePhilosophical Transactionsof one found there, whose cocoon is not only heavier and more productive of silk than that of the common kind, but is so much stronger that twenty threads will carry an ounce more[652]. Don Luis Neé observed onPsidium pomiferumandpyriferumovate nests of caterpillars eight inches long, of gray silk, which the inhabitants of Chilpancingo, Tixtala, &c. in America, manufacture into stockings and handkerchiefs[653]. Great numbers of similar nests of a dense tissue, resembling Chinese paper, of a brilliant whiteness, and formed of distinct and separable layers, the interior being the thinnest and extraordinarily transparent, were observed by Humboldt in the provinces of Mechoacan and the mountains of Santarosa at a height of 10,500 feet above the level of the sea, upon theArbutus Madrônoand other trees. The silk of these nests, which are the work of the social caterpillars of a Bombyx (B. Madrôno), was an object of commerce even in the time of Montezuma, and the ancient Mexicans pasted together the interior layers, which may be written upon without preparation, to form a white glossy pasteboard. Handkerchiefs are still manufactured of it in the Intendency of Oaxaca[654]. De Azara states that in Paraguay a spider, which is found to near the thirtieth degree of latitude, forms a spherical cocoon (for its eggs) an inch in diameter, of a yellow silk, which the inhabitants spin on account of the permanency of the colour[655]. And according to M. B. de Lozieres, large quantities of a very beautiful silk, of dazzling whiteness, may be collected from the cocoons even of the Ichneumons that destroy the larvæ of some moth in the West Indies which feed upon the indigo and cassada[656].
It is probable, too, that other articles besides silk might be obtained from the larvæ which usually produce it, particularly cements and varnishes of different kinds, some hard, others elastic, from their gum and silk reservoirs, from which it is said the Chinese procure a fine varnish, and fabricate what is called by anglers Indian grass[657]. The diminutive size of the animal will be thought no objection, when we recollect that the very small quantityof purple dye afforded by thePurpuraof the ancients did not prevent them from collecting it.
I now conclude this long series of letters on the injuries caused by insects to man, and the benefits which he derives from them; and I think you will readily admit that I have sufficiently made good my position, that the study of agents which perform such important functions in the economy of nature must be worthy of attention. Our subsequent correspondence will be devoted to the most interesting traits in their history,—as their affection to their young, their food and modes of procuring it, habitations, societies, &c.
I am, &c.
Amongst the larger animals, every observer of nature has witnessed, with admiration, that love of their offspring which the beneficent Creator, with equal regard to the happiness of the parent and the progeny, has interwoven in the constitution of his creatures. Who that has any sensibility, has not felt his heart dilate with gratitude to the Giver of all good, in observing amongst the domestic animals which surround him, the effects of this divinestorgé, so fruitful of the most delightful sensations? Who that is not a stock or a stone has read unmoved the anecdote recorded in books of Natural History, of the poor bitch, which in the agonies of a cruel dissection licked with parental fondness her new-born offspring; or the affecting account of the she-bear related in Phipps'sVoyage to the North Pole, which, herself severely wounded by the same shot that killed her cubs, spent her last moments in tearing and laying before them the food she had collected, and died licking their wounds?
These feelings you must have experienced, but it has scarcely occurred to you that you would have any room for exercising them in your new pursuit. You have not, I dare say, suspected that any similar example could have been adduced amongstinsects, to which at the firstglance there seems even something absurd in attributing any thing like parental affection. An animal not so big perhaps as a grain of wheat, feel love for its offspring—how preposterous! we are ready to exclaim. Yet the exclamation would be very much misplaced. Nothing is more certain than that insects are capable of feeling quite as much attachment to their offspring as the largest quadrupeds. They undergo as severe privations in nourishing them; expose themselves to as great risk in defending them; and in the very article of death exhibit as much anxiety for their preservation. Not that this can be said of all insects. A very large proportion of them are doomed to die before their young come into existence. But in these the passion is not extinguished. It is merely modified, and its direction changed. And when you witness the solicitude with which they provide for the security and sustenance of their future young, you can scarcely deny to them love for a progeny they are never destined to behold. Like affectionate parents in similar circumstances, their last efforts are employed in providing for the children that are to succeed them.
I. Observe the motions of that common white butterfly which you see flying from herb to herb. You perceive that it is not food she is in pursuit of; for flowers have no attraction for her. Her object is the discovery of a plant that will supply the sustenance appropriated by Providence to her young, upon which to deposit her eggs. Her own food has been honey drawn from the nectary of a flower. This, therefore, or its neighbourhood, we might expect would be the situation she would select for them. But no: as if aware that this food wouldbe to them poison, she is in search of some plant of the cabbage tribe. But how is she to distinguish it from the surrounding vegetables? She is taught of God! Led by an instinct far more unerring than the practised eye of the botanist, she recognises the desired plant the moment she approaches it, and upon this she places her precious burthen; yet not without the further precaution of ascertaining that it is not preoccupied by the eggs of some other butterfly! Having fulfilled this duty, from which no obstacle short of absolute impossibility, no danger however threatening, can divert her, the affectionate mother dies.
This may serve as one instance of the solicitude of insects for their future progeny. But almost every species will supply examples similar in principle, and in their particular circumstances even more extraordinary. In every case (except in some remarkable instances of mistakes of instinct, as they may be termed, which will be subsequently adverted to) the parent unerringly distinguishes the food suitable for her offspring, however dissimilar to her own; or at least invariably places her eggs, often defended from external injury by a variety of admirable contrivances, in the exact spot where, when hatched, the larvæ can have access to it.—The dragon-fly is an inhabitant of the air, and could not exist in water: yet in this element, which is alone adapted for her young, she ever carefully drops her eggs. The larvæ of the gad-fly (Gasterophilus Equi), whose history has been before described to you[658], are destined to live in the stomach of the horse. How shall the parent, a two-winged fly, convey them thither? By a mode truly extraordinary.Flying round the animal, she curiously poises her body for an instant while she glues a single egg to one of the hairs of his skin, and repeats this process until she has fixed in a similar way many hundred eggs. These, after a few days, on the application of the slightest moisture attended by warmth, hatch into little grubs. Whenever, therefore, the horse chances to lick any part of his body to which they are attached, the moisture of the tongue discloses one or more grubs, which adhering to it by means of the saliva are conveyed into the mouth, and thence find their way into the stomach. But here a question occurs to you. It is but a small portion of the horse's body which he can reach with his tongue: what, you ask, becomes of the eggs deposited on other parts? I will tell you how the gad-fly avoids this dilemma; and I will then ask you if she does not discover a provident forethought, a depth of instinct, which almost casts into shade the boasted reason of man? She places her eggs only on those parts of the skin which the horse is able to reach with his tongue; nay, she confines them almost exclusively to the knee or the shoulder, which he is sure to lick. What could the most refined reason, the most precise adaptation of means to an end, do more[659]?
Not less admirable is the parental instinct of that vast tribe of insects already introduced to you by the name ofIchneumons, whose young are destined to feed upon the living bodies of other insects. These, as you know, are so numerous, that scarcely an insect exists, which in its larva state is not exposed to the attacks of one or other of them; and even the pupæ, nay the very eggs of these animals, are not safe from their insidious manœuvres.The size of the different species varies in proportion to that of the bodies which are to be their food; some being so inconceivably small, that the egg of a butterfly not bigger than a pin's head is of sufficient magnitude to nourish two of them to maturity[660]; others so large, that the body of a full-grown caterpillar is not more than enough for one. They are the larvæ of these Ichneumons which make such havoc of our pygmy tribes: the perfect insect is a four-winged fly, which takes no other food than a little honey; and the great object of the female is to discover a proper nidus for her eggs. In search of this she is in constant motion. Is the caterpillar of a butterfly or moth the appropriate food for her young? You see her alight upon the plants where they are most usually to be met with, run quickly over them, carefully examining every leaf, and, having found the unfortunate object of her search, insert her sting into its flesh and there deposit an egg. In vain her victim, as if conscious of its fate, writhes its body, spits out an acid fluid, menaces with its tentacula, or brings into action the other organs of defence with which it is provided. The active Ichneumon braves every danger, and does not desist until her courage and address have ensured subsistence for one of her future progeny. Perhaps, however, she discovers, by a sense the existence of which we perceive, though we have no conception of its nature, that she has been forestalled by some precursor of her own tribe, that has already buried an egg in the caterpillar she is examining. In this case she leaves it, aware that it would not suffice for the support of two, and proceeds in search of some other yet unoccupied.—The processis of course varied in the case of those minute species of which several, sometimes as many as 150, can subsist in a single caterpillar. The little Ichneumon then repeats her operations until she has darted into her victim the requisite number of eggs.
The larvæ hatched from the eggs thus ingeniously deposited, find a delicious banquet in the body of the caterpillar, which is sure eventually to fall a victim to their ravages. So accurately, however, is the supply of food proportioned to the demand, that this event does not take place until the young Ichneumons have attained their full growth: when the caterpillar either dies, or, retaining just vitality enough to assume the pupa state, then finishes its existence; the pupa disclosing not a moth or a butterfly, but one or more full-grown Ichneumons.
In this strange and apparently cruel operation one circumstance is truly remarkable. The larva of the Ichneumon, though every day, perhaps for months, it gnaws the inside of the caterpillar, and though at last it has devoured almost every part of it except the skin and intestines, carefully all this timeavoids injuring the vital organs, as if aware that its own existence depends on that of the insect on which it preys! Thus the caterpillar continues to eat, to digest, and to move, apparently little injured, to the last, and only perishes when the parasitic grub within it no longer requires its aid. What would be the impression which a similar instance amongst the race of quadrupeds would make upon us?—If, for example, an animal—such as some impostors have pretended to carry within them—should be found to feed upon the inside of a dog; devouring only those parts not essential to life, while it cautiously left uninjured theheart, arteries, lungs, and intestines,—should we not regard such an instance as a perfect prodigy, as an example of instinctive forbearance almost miraculous?
Some Ichneumons, instead of burying their eggs in the body of the larvæ that are to serve their young for food, content themselves with gluing them to the skin of their prey, which the young grubs pierce as soon as hatched. Another tribe, whose activity and perseverance are equally conspicuous, which includes the beautiful genusChrysisand many other hymenopterous insects, imitating the insidious cuckoo, contrive to introduce their eggs into the nests in which bees and other insects have deposited theirs. With this view they are constantly on the watch, and, the moment the unsuspecting mother has quitted her cell for the purpose of collecting a store of food or materials, glide into it and leave an egg, the germe of a future assassin of the larva that is to spring from that deposited by its side.
The females of the insects of which we have been speaking, in providing for their offspring, are saved the trouble of furnishing them with any habitation. Either they occupy that of another insect, or find a convenient abode within the body of that on which they feed. But upon the maternal affection of another large hymenopterous tribe, belonging to Latreille's Family of Burrowers (Fossores), whose young in like manner feed on other insects, is imposed the arduous task not merely of collecting a supply of food, but of inclosing it along with their eggs in cells or burrows often of considerable depth, and dug with great labour in sand or the solid earth.
The general economy of these insects is similar. Having first dug a cylindrical cavity of the requisite dimensions,and deposited an egg at the bottom, they inclose along with it one or more caterpillars, spiders, or other insects, each particular species for the most part selecting a distinct kind, as a provision for the young one when hatched, and sufficiently abundant to nourish it until it becomes a pupa. Many thus furnish several cells. This process, however, is varied by different species, some of whose operations are worthy of a more detailed description.
One of the most early histories of the procedure of an insect of this kind, probably the common sand-wasp (Ammophila vulgaris), is left us by the excellent Ray, who observed it along with his friend Willughby. On the 22d of June 1667, he tells us, they noticed this insect dragging a green caterpillar thrice as big as itself, which after thus conveying about fifteen feet, it deposited at the entrance of a hole previously dug in the sand. Then removing a pellet of earth from its mouth, it descended into the cavity, and, presently returning, dragged along with it the caterpillar. After staying awhile it again ascended, then rolled pieces of earth into the hole, at intervals scratching the dust into it like a dog with its fore feet, and entering it as if to press down and consolidate the mass: flying also once or twice to an adjoining fir-tree, possibly to procure resin for agglutinating the whole. Having filled the burrow to a level with the surrounding earth so as to conceal the entrance, it took two fir-leaves lying at hand, and placed them near the orifice as if to mark the place.—Such is the anecdote left on record by our illustrious countryman, of whose accuracy of observation there can be no doubt[661]. Who that readsit can refrain from joining in the reflection which it calls from him, "Quis hæc non mihi miretur et stupeat? Quis hujusmodi opera meræ machinæ possit attribuere[662]?"
I myself, when walking with a friend some months ago, observed nearly similar manœuvres performed by another hymenopterous insect which may be called a spider-wasp (Pompilus), which attracted our attention as it was dragging a spider to its cell. The attitude in which it carried its prey, namely with its feet constantly upwards; its singular mode of walking, which was backwards, except for a foot or two when it went forwards, moving by jerks and making a sort of pause every few steps; and the astonishing agility with which, notwithstanding its heavy burthen, it glided over or between the grass, weeds, and other numerous impediments in the rough path along which it passed—together formed a spectacle which we contemplated with admiration. The distance which we thus observed it to traverse was not less than twenty-seven feet, and great part of its journey had probably been performed before we saw it. Once or twice, when we first noticed it, it laid down the spider, and making a small circuit returned and took it up again. But for the ensuing twenty or twenty-five feet it never stopped, but proceeded in a direct line for its burrow with the utmost speed. When opposite the hole, which was in a sand bank by the way side, it made a sharp turn, as evidently aware of being in the neighbourhood of its abode, but when advanced a little further laid down its burthen and went to reconnoitre. At first it climbed up the bank, but, as if discovering that this was not the direction, soon returned, and, after another survey perceivingthe hole, took up the spider and dragged it in after it.
In the two instances above given, one dead caterpillar or spider only was deposited in each hole. But an insect described by Reaumur under the name of the mason-wasp (Epipone spinipes), very common in some parts of England, after having excavated a burrow, with an ingenuity to which on a future occasion I shall draw your attention, places along with its egg as food for the future young, about twelve little green grubs without feet, which it has carefully selected full grown and conveyed without injuring them. You will inquire, Why this difference of procedure? With regard to the choice of a number of small grubs rather than of one large caterpillar, what I have said in a former letter on the subject of different species of this tribe being appointed to prey upon and thus keep within due limits the larvæ of different kinds of insects, will be a sufficient answer. But one circumstance creditable to the talents of the mason-wasp as a skilful purveyor should not be omitted, namely, that the number of grubs laid up is not always the same, but is exactly proportioned to their size, eleven or twelve being stored when they are small, but only eight or nine when larger. With respect however to the caution of the wasp in selecting full grown grubs and conveying them uninjured to her hole, a satisfactory explanation may be given. If those that are but partly grown were chosen, they would die in a short time for want of food, and putrefying would destroy the inclosed egg, or the young one which springs from it. But when larvæ of any kind have attained their full size, and are about to pass into the pupa state, they can exist for a long periodwithout any further supply. By selecting these, therefore, and placing them uninjured in the hole, however long the interval before the egg hatches, the disclosed larva is sure of a sufficiency of fresh and wholesome nutriment.—To prevent the possibility of any injury to its egg from the motions or voracity of this living prey, the wasp is careful to pack the whole so closely, each grub being coiled above the other in a series of rings, and to consolidate the earth so firmly above them, that they have not the slightest power of motion[663].—Those which select more powerful caterpillars, or revenge the injuries of their insect brethren by devoting spiders to the destruction they have so often caused, take care to sting them in such a manner as, without killing them outright, will incapacitate them from doing any injury.
Zeal and activity in providing for the well-being of their future progeny, not inferior to what are exhibited by the tribe of Ichneumons,Sphecina[664], and mason-wasps, though less cruelly exerted, are also shown by various species of wild bees, of which we have in this country a vast number. Having first excavated a proper cell with a dexterity and persevering labour never enough to be admired, they next deposit in it an egg, which they cover with a mass of pollen or honey collected with unwearied assiduity from a thousand flowers. As soon as the grub is hatched, it finds itself enveloped in this delicious banquet provided for it by the cares of a mother it is doomed never to behold; and so accurately is the repast proportionedto its appetite and its wants, that as soon as the whole is consumed it has no longer need of food; it clothes itself in a silken cocoon, becomes a pupa, and after a deep sleep of a few days bursts from its cell an active bee.
No circumstance connected with thestorgéof insects, is more striking than the herculean and incessant labour which it leads them cheerfully to undergo. Some of these exertions are so disproportionate to the size of the insect, that nothing short of ocular conviction could attribute them to such an agent. A wild bee or a Sphex, for instance, will dig a hole in a hard bank of earth some inches deep and five or six times its own size, and labour unremittingly at this arduous undertaking for several days, scarcely allowing itself a moment for eating or repose. It will then occupy as much time in searching for a store of food; and no sooner is this task finished, than it will set about repeating the process, and before it dies will have completed five or six similar cells or even more. If you would estimate this industry at its proper value, you should reflect what kind of exertion it would require in a man to dig in a few days out of hard clay or sand, with no other tools than his nails and teeth, five or six caverns twenty feet deep and four or five wide—for such an undertaking would not be comparatively greater than that of the insects in question.
Similar laborious exertions are not confined to the bee or Sphex tribe. Several beetles in depositing their eggs exhibit examples of industry equally extraordinary. The common dor or clock (Geotrupes stercorarius), which may be found beneath every heap of dung, digs a deep cylindrical hole, and, carrying down a mass of the dung to the bottom, in it deposits its eggs. And many of thespecies of theScarabæidæ[665]roll together wet dung into round pellets, deposit an egg in the midst of each, and when dry push them backwards by their hind feet into holes of the surprising depth of three feet, which they have previously dug for their reception, and which are often several yards distant. Frequently the road lies across a depression in the surface, and the pellet when nearly pushed to the summit rolls back again. But our patient Sisyphi are not easily discouraged. They repeat their efforts again and again, and in the end their perseverance is rewarded by success. The attention of these insects to their eggs is so remarkable, that it was observed in the earliest ages, and is mentioned by ancient writers, but with the addition of many fables, as that they were all of the male sex, that they became young again every year, that they rolled the pellets containing their eggs from sun-rise to sun-set every day, for twenty-eight days without intermission[666], &c. It is one of this tribe of beetles (S. sacer) whose image is so often met with amongst the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, with whom it was a symbol of the world, of the sun, and of a courageous warrior. Of the world, as P. Valerianus supposes, on account of the orbicular form of its pellets of dung, and the notion of their being rolled from sun-rise to sun-set; of the sun, because of the angular projections from its head resembling rays, and the thirty joints of the six tarsi of its feet answering to the days of the month; and of a warrior, from the idea of manlycourage being connected with its supposed birth from a male only[667]. It was as symbolical of this last that its image was worn upon the signets of the Roman soldiers; and as typical of the sun, the source of fertility, it is yet, as Dr. Clarke informs us, eaten by the women to render them prolific[668].