242 ARCTIIDiE — WOOLLY-BEAR MOTHS. 



Arctiidae — Wooly-bear Moths. 



In It 83, the larvae of the Moth, Arctia chrysorrhcea, 

 were so destructive in the neighborhood of London that 

 subscriptions were opened to employ the poor in cutting off 

 and collecting the webs ; and it is asserted that not less than 

 eighty bushels were collected and burnt in one day in the 

 parish of Clapham. And even in some places prayers were 

 offered up in the churches to avert the calamities of which 

 they were supposed by the ignorant to be the forerunner.^ 



If a caterpillar spins its cocoon in a house, it foretells its 

 desolation by death ; if in your clothes, it warns you you 

 will wear a shroud before the year is out. This supersti- 

 tion obtains in the Middle States, Virginia, and Maryland. 



If Moths, flying in a candle, put it out, it forebodes a 

 calamity amounting to almost death. This superstition is 

 pretty general. 



Why Moths fly in a candle : Kempfer tells us, there is 

 found in Japan an insect, which, by reason of its incompar- 

 able beauty, is kept by the Japanese ladies among the curi- 

 osities of their toilets. He calls it a Night-fly, and describes 

 it as being ''about a finger long, slender, round-bodied, with 

 four wings, two of which are transparent and hid under a 

 pair of others, which are shining as it were polished, and 

 most curiously adorned with blue and golden lines and spots." 

 The following little fable, which accounts so beautifully for 

 the flying of Moths in a candle, owes its origin to the unpar- 

 alleled beauty of this insect, and is well worthy of being 

 preserved : The Japanese say that all other Night-flies 

 (Moths, etc.) fall in love with this particular one, who, to 

 get rid of their importunities, maliciously bids them, under 

 the pretense of trying their constancy, to go and bring to 

 her fire. And the blind lovers, scrupling not to obey her 

 command, fly to the nearest fire or candle, in which they 

 never fail to burn themselves to death. ^ 



The following verses, embodying the above fable (except 

 in several minor particulars) are from the pen of Mrs. A. L. 

 Ruter Dufour: 



1 Baird's Fncycl. of Nat. Set. Shaw's Zool, vi. 229. 



2 Pinkerton's Col. of Voy. arid Trav., vii. 705. 



