244 ARCTIID^ — WOOLLY-BEAR MOTHS. 



Pliny says, that " if a woDian having a catamenia strips 

 herself naked, and walks round a field of wheat, the cater- 

 pillars, worms, beetles, and other vermin, will fall off the 

 ears of the grain!" This important discovery, according 

 to Metrodurus of Scepsos, was first made in Cappadocia ; 

 Avhere, in consequence of such multitudes of " Cantharides" 

 being found to breed there, it was the practice for women to 

 walk through the middle of the fields with their garments 

 tucked up above the thighs.^ Columella^ has described this 

 practice in verse, and ^lian^ also mentions it. Pliny says 

 further that in other places, again, it is the usage of women 

 to go barefoot, with the hair disheveled and the girdle loose : 

 due precaution, however, he seriously observes, must be 

 taken that this is not done at sunrise, for if so the crop will 

 wither and dry up.* Apuleius,^ Columella,^ and Palladius^ 

 relate the same story. Constantinus, likewise, whose verses, 

 as translated in Moufet's Theater of Insects, are as fol- 

 lows : 



But if against this plague no art prevail, 

 The Trojan arts will do't, when others fail. 

 A woman barefoot with her hair untied, 

 And naked breasts must walk as if she cried, 

 And after Venus' sports she must surround 

 Ten times, the garden beds and orchard ground. 

 When she hath done, 'tis wonderful to see, 

 The caterpillars fall off from the tree, 

 As fast as drops of rain, when with a crook, 

 For acorns or apples the tree is shook. ^ 



This remarkable superstitious remedy for destroying 

 caterpillars was frequently practiced by the Indians of 

 America. Schoolcraft, treating of the peculiar supersti- 

 tions connected with the menstrual lodge of these people, 

 says : 



"This superstition does not alone exert a malign influ- 

 ence, or spell, on the human species. Its ominous power, 



1 Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxviii. 7 (23). 



2 Col. B. X. 



3 /Elian, B. xi. c. 3. 



* Pliny, Nat. Hist., xxviii. 7 (23). 



^ Vide Owen's Geoponlka, ii. 99. 



6 Col. In Hort., v. 357. 



T Pallad. B. i. c. 35. 



8 Theair. Ins., p. 193. Topsel's Hist, of Beasts, p. 1041 and 670. 



