Superstitions about Insects.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 871, 9 November 1888, Page 5

Superstitions about Insects.

The Koran Bays all flies shall perish save one, the bee fly. It is regarded as a death warning in Germany to hear a cricket’s cry. The Tapuya Indians in South America say the devil assumes the form of a fly. Rain is, in some parts of onr own country, expected to follow unusually loud chirping of crickets.

Flies are sometimes regarded as furnishing prognostications of the weather, and even of other events.

Spaniards, in the Sixteenth Century, be* lieved that Bpiders indicated gold, where they were found in abundance. Although a sacred insect among the Egyptians, the beetle receives but little notice in folk lore. It is unlucky iu England to kill one.

In Germany it is said to indicate good luck to have a spider spring his web downward toward you, but bad luck when he rises toward you. The grasshopper is a sufficiently unwelcome visitant of himself in this country, but in Germany his preseuoe is farther said to announce strange gueßts. A Welsh tradition says bees oame from Paradise, leaving the garden when man fell, but with God’s blessing, so that wax is necessary in the celebration of the mass. The ancients generally maintained that there was a close connection between bees and the soul. Porphyry speaks of * those souls whioh the ancients called bees.l It is said that upon the backs of the 7-year looust there sometimes appear marks like a letter of the alphabet. When this looks likA a W it is thought that a war is imminent.

German tribes regarded stag-beetles as diabolic, and all beetles are detested iu Ireland, more especially a bronze variety known as ‘gooldie.’ It is also believed that to see a beetle will bring on a rainstorm the next day. There are said to be no spiders in Ireland, nor will spiders spin their web in an Irish oak nor on a cedar roof. A spider is said to have saved Mahammed from his pursuers, by spinning his web across a cave where he sought refuge. The same is said of David in the Cave of Adullam.