Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions Part 28

Du Bartas thus expresses this:

Once as this artist, more with mirth than meat, Feasted some friends whom he esteemed great, Forth from his hand an iron Fly flew out; Which having flown a perfect round-about, With weary wings return'd unto her master: And as judicious on his arm he plac'd her.

O! wit divine, that in the narrow womb Of a small fly, could find sufficient room For all those springs, wheels, counterpoise and chains, Which stood instead of life, and blood, and veins![1000]

We find also in a work bearing the t.i.tle "Apologie pour les Grands Homines Accuses de Magie," that "Jean de Montroyal presented to the Emperor Charles V. an iron Fly, which made a solemn circuit round its inventor's head, and then reposed from its fatigue on his arm."--Probably the same automaton, since Regiomonta.n.u.s and Montroyal are the same.

Such a Fly as the above is rather extraordinary, yet I have something better to tell--still about a Fly.

Gervais, Chancellor to the Emperor Otho III., in his book ent.i.tled "Otia Imperatoris," informs us that "the sage Virgilius, Bishop of Naples, made a bra.s.s Fly, which he placed on one of the city gates, and that this mechanical Fly, trained like a shepherd's dog, prevented any other fly entering Naples; so much so, that during eight years the meat exposed for sale in the market was never once tainted!"[1001]

"Varro affirmeth," says Pliny, "that the heads of Flies applied fresh to the bald place, is a convenient medicine for the said infirmity and defect. Some use in this case the bloud of flies: others mingle their ashes with the ashes of paper used in old time, or els of nuts; with this proportion, that there be a third part only of the ashes of flies to the rest, and herewith for ten days together rubb the bare places where the hair is gone. Some there be againe, who temper and incorporat togither the said ashes of Flies with the juice of colewort and brest-milke: others take nothing thereto but honey."[1002]

Mucia.n.u.s, who was thrice consul, carried about him a living Fly, says Pliny, wrapped in a piece of white linen, and strongly a.s.serted that to the use of this expedient he owed his preservation from ophthalmia.[1003]

Ferdinand Mendez Pinto says: "In our travels with the amba.s.sador of the King of Bramaa to the Calaminham, we saw in a grot men of a sect of one of their Saints, named Angemacur: these lived in deep holes, made in the mider of the rock, according to the rule of their wretched order, eating nothing but Flies, Ants, Scorpions, and Spiders, with the juice of a certain herb, much like to sorrel."[1004]

Says Moufet, in his Theater of Insects: "Plutarch, in his Artaxerxes, relates that it was a law amongst a certain people, that whosoever should be so bold as to laugh at and deride their lawes and const.i.tutions of state, was bound for twenty daies together in an open chest naked, all besmeared with honey and milk, and so became a prey to the Flies and Bees, afterward when the days were expired he was put into a woman's habit and thrown headlong down a mountain.... Of which kinde of punishment also Suidas makes mention in his Epicurus. There was likewise for greater offenders, a punishment of Boats, so called. For that he that was convict of high treason, was clapt between two boats, with his head, hands, and feet hanging out: for his drink he had milk and honey powred down his throat, with which also his head and hands were sprinkled, then being set against the sun, he drew to him abundance of stinging Flies, and within being full of their worms, he putrefied by little and little, and so died. Which kinde of examples of severity as the ancients shewed to the guilty and criminous offenders; so on the other side the Spaniards in the Indies, used to drive numbers of the innocents out of their houses, as the custome is among them, naked, all bedawbed with honey, and expose them in open air to the biting of most cruel Flies."[1005]

Mr. Henry Mayhew, in that part of his interesting work on London Labor and London Poor devoted to the London Street-folk, has given us the narratives of several "Catch-'em-Alive" sellers--a set of poor boys who sell prepared papers for the purpose of catching Flies. He discovered, as he relates, a colony of these "Catch-'em-alive" boys residing in Pheasant-court, Gray's-inn-lane. They were playing at "pitch-and-toss"

in the middle of the paved yard, and all were very willing to give him their statements; indeed, the only difficulty he had was in making his choice among the youths.

"Please, sir," said one with teeth ribbed like celery, to him, "I've been at it longer than him."

"Please, sir, he ain't been out this year with the papers," said another, who was hiding a handful of b.u.t.tons behind his back.

"He's been at shoe-blacking, sir; I'm the only reg'lar fly-boy," shouted a third, eating a piece of bread as dirty as London snow.

A big lad with a dirty face, and hair like hemp, was the first of the "catch-'em-alive" boys who gave him his account of his trade. He was a swarthy featured boy, with a broad nose like a negro's, and on his temple was a big half-healed scar, which he accounted for by saying that "he had been runned over" by a cab, though, judging from the blackness of one eye, it seemed to Mr. Mayhew to have been the result of some street fight. He said:

"I'm an Irish boy, and nearly turned sixteen, and I've been silling fly-papers for between eight and nine year. I must have begun to sill them when they first come out. Another boy first tould me of them, and he'd been silling them about three weeks before me. He used to buy them of a party as lives in a back-room near Drury-lane, what buys paper and makes the catch 'em alive for himself. When they first come out they used to charge sixpence a dozen for 'em, but now they've got 'em to twopence ha'penny. When I first took to silling 'em, there was a tidy lot of boys at the business, but not so many as now, for all the boys seem at it. In our court alone I should think there was about twenty boys silling the things.

"At first, when there was a good time, we used to buy three or four gross together, but now we don't no more than half a gross. As we go along the streets we call out different cries. Some of us says, 'Fly-papers, fly-papers, ketch 'em all alive.' Others make a kind of song of it, singing out, 'Fly-paper, ketch 'em all alive, the nasty flies, tormenting the baby's eyes. Who'd be fly-blow'd, by all the nasty blue-bottles, beetles, and flies?' People likes to buy of a boy as sings out well, 'cos it makes 'em laugh.

"I don't think I sell so many in town as I do in the borders of the country, about Highbury, Croydon, and Brentford. I've got some regular customers in town about the City-prison and the Caledonian-road; and after I've served them and the town custom begins to fall off, then I goes to the country. We goes two of us together, and we takes about three gross. We keep on silling before us all the way, and we comes back the same road. Last year we sould very well in Croydon, and it was the best place for gitting the best price for them; they'd give a penny a piece for 'em there, for they didn't know nothing about them. I went off one day at ten o'clock and didn't come home till two in the morning. I sould eighteen dozen out in that d'rection the other day, and got rid of them before I had got half-way. But flies are very scarce at Croydon this year, and we haven't done so well. There ain't half as many flies this summer as last.

"Some people says the papers draws more flies than they ketches, and that when one gets in, there's twenty others will come to see him. It's according to the weather as the flies is about. If we have a fine day it fetches them out, but a cold day kills more than our papers.

"We sills the most papers to little cook-shops and sweet-meat shops. We don't sill so many at private houses. The public-houses is pretty good customers, 'cos the beer draws the flies. I sould nine dozen at one house--a school--at Highgate, the other day. I sould 'em two for three-ha' pence. That was a good hit, but then t'other days we loses. If we can make a ha'penny each we thinks we does well.

"Those that sills their papers at three a-penny buys them at St.

Giles's, and pays only three ha'pence a dozen for them, but they ain't half as big and good as those we pays tuppence-ha'penny a dozen for.

"Barnet is a good place for fly-papers; there's a good lot of flies down there. There used to be a man at Barnet as made 'em, but I can't say if he do now. There's another at Brentford, so it ain't much good going that way.

"In cold weather the papers keep pretty well, and will last for months with just a little warming at the fire; for they tears on opening when they are dry. You see we always carry them with the stickey sides doubled up together like a sheet of writing-paper. In hot weather, if you keep them folded up, they lasts very well; but if you opens them, they dry up. It's easy opening them in hot weather, for they comes apart as easy as peeling a horrange. We generally carries the papers in a bundle on our arm, and we ties a paper as is loaded with flies round our cap, just to show the people the way to ketch 'em. We get a loaded paper given to us at a shop.

"When the papers come out first, we use to do very well with fly-papers; but now it's hard work to make our own money for 'em. Some days we used to make six s.h.i.+llings a day regular. But then we usen't to go out every day, but take a rest at home. If we do well one day, then we might stop idle another day, resting. You see, we had to do our twenty or thirty miles silling them to get that money, and then the next day we was tired.

"The silling of papers is gradual falling off. I could go out and sill twenty dozen wonst where I couldn't sill one now. I think I does a very grand day's work if I yearns a s.h.i.+lling. Perhaps some days I may lose by them. You see, if it's a very hot day, the papers gets dusty; and besides, the stuff gets melted and oozes out; though that don't do much harm, 'cos we gets a bit of whitening and rubs 'em over. Four years ago we might make ten s.h.i.+llings a day at the papers, but now, taking from one end of the fly-season to the other, which is about three months, I think we makes about one s.h.i.+lling a day out of papers, though even that ain't quite certain. I never goes out without getting rid of mine, somehow or another, but then I am obleeged to walk quick and look about me.

"When it's a bad time for silling the papers, such as a wet, could day, then most of the fly-paper boys goes out with brushes, cleaning boots.

Most of the boys is now out hopping. They goes reg'lar every year after the season is give over for flies.

"The stuff as they puts on the paper is made out of boiled oil and turpentine and resin. It's seldom as a fly lives more than five minutes after it gets on the paper, and then it's as dead as a house. The blue-bottles is tougher, but they don't last long, though they keeps on fizzing as if they was trying to make a hole in the paper. The stuff is only p'isonous for flies, though I never heard of anybody as ever eat a fly-paper."

A second lad, in conclusion, said: "There's lots of boys going selling 'ketch-'em-alive oh's' from Golden-lane, and White-chapel and the Borough. There's lots, too, comes out of Gray's-inn-lane and St.

Giles's. Near every boy who has nothing to do goes out with fly-papers.

Perhaps it ain't that the flies is falled off that we don't sill so many papers now, but because there's so many boys at it."

A third, of the lot the most intelligent and gentle in his demeanor, though the smallest in stature, said:

"I've been longer at it than the last boy, though I'm only getting on for thirteen, and he's older than I'm; 'cos I'm little and he's big, getting a man. But I can sell them quite as well as he can, and sometimes better, for I can holler out just as loud, and I've got reg'lar places to go to. I was a very little fellow when I first went out with them, but I could sell them pretty well then, sometimes three or four dozen a day. I've got one place, in a stable, where I can sell a dozen at a time to country people.

"I calls out in the streets, and I goes into the shops, too, and calls out, 'Ketch 'em alive, ketch 'em alive; ketch all the nasty black-beetles, blue-bottles, and flies; ketch 'em from teasing the baby's eyes.' That's what most of us boys cries out. Some boys who is stupid only says, 'Ketch 'em alive,' but people don't buy so well from them.

"Up in St. Giles's there is a lot of fly-boys, but they're a bad set, and will fling mud at gentlemen, and some prigs the gentlemen's pockets.

Sometimes, if I sell more than a big boy, he'll get mad and hit me.

He'll tell me to give him a halfpenny and he won't touch me, and that if I don't he'll kill me. Some of the boys takes an open fly-paper, and makes me look another way, and then they sticks the ketch-'em-alive on my face. The stuff won't come off without soap and hot water, and it goes black, and looks like mud. One day a boy had a broken fly-paper, and I was taking a drink of water, and he come behind me and slapped it up in my face. A gentleman as saw him give him a crack with a stick and me twopence. It takes your breath away, until a man comes and takes it off. It all sticked to my hair, and I couldn't rack (comb) right for some time....

"I don't like going along with other boys, they take your customers away; for perhaps they'll sell 'em at three a penny to 'em, and spoil the customers for you. I won't go with the big boy you saw, 'cos he's such a blackgeyard; when he's in the country he'll go up to a lady and say, 'Want a fly-paper, marm?' and if she says 'No,' he'll perhaps job his head in her face--b.u.t.t at her like.

"When there's no flies, and the ketch-'em-alive is out, then I goes tumbling. I can turn a cat'enwheel over on one hand. I'm going to-morrow to the country, harvesting and hopping--for, as we says, 'Go out hopping, come in jumping.' We start at three o'clock to-morrow, and we shall get about twelve o'clock at night at Dead Man's Barn. It was left for poor people to sleep in, and a man was buried there in a corner. The man had got six farms of hops; and if his son hadn't buried him there, he wouldn't have had none of the riches.

"The greatest number of fly-papers I've sold in a day is about eight dozen. I never sells no more than that; I wish I could. People won't buy 'em now. When I'm at it I makes, taking one day with another, about ten s.h.i.+llings a week. You see, if I sold eight dozen, I'd make four s.h.i.+llings. I sell 'em at a penny each, at two for three-ha'pence, and three for twopence. When they gets stale I sells 'em for three a penny.

I always begin by asking a penny each, and perhaps they'll say, 'Give me two for three ha'pence?' I'll say, 'Can't, ma'am,' and then they pulls out a purse full of money and gives a penny.

"The police is very kind to us, and don't interfere with us. If they see another boy hitting us they'll take off their belts and hit 'em.

Sometimes I've sold a ketch-'em-alive to a policeman; he'll fold it up and put it into his pocket to take home with him. Perhaps he's got a kid, and the flies teazes its eyes.

"Some ladies like to buy fly-cages better than ketch-em-alive's, because sometimes when they're putting 'em up they falls in their faces, and then they screams."

The history of the manufacture of Fly-papers was thus given to Mr.

Mayhew by a manufacturer, whom he found in a small attic-room near Drury-lane: "The first man as was the inventor of these fly-papers kept a barber's shop in St. Andrew-street, Seven Dials, of the name of Greenwood or Greenfinch, I forget which. I expect he diskivered it by accident, using varnish and stuff, for stale varnish has nearly the same effect as our composition. He made 'em and sold 'em at first at threepence and fourpence a piece. Then it got down to a penny. He sold the receipt to some other parties, and then it got out through their having to employ men to help 'em. I worked for a party as made 'em, and then I set to work making 'em for myself, and afterwards hawking them.

They was a greater novelty then than they are now, and sold pretty well.

Then men in the streets, who had nothing to do, used to ask me where I bought 'em, and then I used to give 'em my own address, and they'd come and find me."[1006]

stridae--Bot-flies.

The larvae of Bots, _stris ovis_, found in the heads of sheep and goats, have been prescribed, and that, from the tripod of Delphos, as a remedy for the epilepsy. We are told so on the authority of Alexander Trailien; but whether Democritus, who consulted the oracle, was cured by this remedy, does not appear; the story shows, however, that the ancients were aware that these maggots made their way even into the brain of living animals.[1007] The oracle answered Democritus as follows:

Take a tame goat that hath the greatest head, Or else a wilde goat in the field that's bred, And in his forehead a great worm you'l finde, This cures all diseases of that kinde.[1008]

The common saying that a whimsical person is _maggoty_, or has got _maggots in his head_, perhaps arose from the freaks the sheep have been observed to exhibit when infested by their Bots.[1009]

The following "charme for the Bots[1010] in a horse" is found in Scots'

Discovery of Witchcraft, printed in 1651: "You must both say and do thus upon the diseased horse three days together, before the sun rising: _In nomine patris & filii & Spiritussancti, Exorcize te vermen per Deum patrem & filium & Spiritumsanctum_: that is, In the name of G.o.d the father, the sonne, and the Holy Ghost, I conjure thee O worm by G.o.d, the Father, the sonne, and the Holy Ghost; that thou neither eate nor drink the flesh, blood, or bones of this horse; and that thou hereby maiest be made as patient as Job, and as good as S. John Baptist, when he baptized Christ in Jordan, _In nomine patris & filii et spiritussancti_. And then say three _Pater nosters_, and three _Aves_, in the right eare of the horse, to the glory of the holy trinity. Dominus filius spiritus Maria."[1011]

There is a popular error in England respecting the _strus (Gasterophilus) equi (haemorrhoidalis)_, which Shakspeare has followed, and which has been judiciously explained by Mr. Clark. Shakspeare makes the carrier at Rochester observe: "Peas and oats are as dank here as a dog, and that's the next way to give _poor jades the bots_."[1012]