1^ Mr C. G. Ehrenberg's Observations on the 



The want of accurate investigation of the cases mentioned, 

 along with the predilection, in every age, for the marvellous, 

 induce us rather to direct our attention to the red excrement of 

 insects, than to local atmospherical depositions, so rare in our 

 time. 



(5) Blood-rains, by which rivers simultaneously do or do not 

 assume a red colour. 



Appearances of this description have at all times been abun- 

 dantly observed, but very erroneously investigated. Many ac- 

 counts of this kind have been related as prodigies in the Roman 

 History, before Christ. Dio Cassias, in particular, considers 

 that the blood-rain which fell in Egypt, in the time of Octavian, 

 must be recorded as a thing very remarkable, because it never 

 rained in Egypt, which is a mistake. 



In the year A. D. G5, during the reign of Nero, blood-rain 

 fell, which tinged the rivers with a red colour. 



Two instances are recorded of blood-rain in the sixth century. 

 In the eleventh century, one ; in the twelfth, two ; in the 

 thirteenth, one ; in the fourteenth, two ; in the fifteenth, one ; 

 and in the sixteenth, five. 



The chief difficulty in deciding these single instances, lies in 

 this, — that the circumstances under which they happened are not 

 related. Whether it rained from clouds or without clouds, 

 whether the rain was intentionally caught, and thus proved to 

 have fallen from the atmosphere ; or whether, from red spots 

 that were seen without or after rain, on objects of different 

 kinds ; they merely concluded them to be drops of rain that had 

 fallen. The accounts are so brief and inconclusive, sometimes 

 accompanied with superstitious and manifestly false additions, 

 that we may venture to refer the cases to terrestrial phenomena 

 quite within our reach. Whoever reflects how strange and 

 trivial the cause of popular alarm is, in regard to any thing 

 marvellous, may well hesitate in his inclination to draw any 

 conclusive theory from such cases. Since Peiresc, during a 

 public alarm at Aix, directed his attention to them, every body 

 knows that bees and butterflies, the one while extricating them- 

 selves from the pupa, the other in their first flying forth in 

 spring, or after a long continuance of bad weather, let fall many 

 drops of a red fluid, often in surprising quantities, and storms 



