327 



fanciful and superstitious natives of northern Eu- 

 rope, maintainers of the wildest conceptions. A 

 letter is now before me from a correspondent in 

 German Poland, where this insect is a common crea- 

 ture, and so abounded in 1824, that my informant 

 collected fifty of them in the potato-fields of his 

 village, where they call them the '* deaths-head 

 phantom," the " wandering death-bird/' &c. The 

 markings on its back represent to these fertile ima- 

 ginations the head of a perfect skeleton, with the 

 limb bones crossed beneath ; its cry becomes the 

 voice of anguish, the moaning of a child, the sig- 

 nal of grief ; it is regarded not as the creation of a 

 benevolent being, but the device of evil spirits 

 spirits enemies to man, conceived and fabricated 

 in the dark ; and the very shining of its eyes is 

 thought to represent the fiery element whence it 

 is supposed to have proceeded. Flying into their 

 apartments in the evening, it at times extinguishes 

 the light, foretelling war, pestilence, hunger, death, 

 to man and beast. We pity, rather than ridi- 

 cule, these fears ; their consequences being painful 

 anxiety of mind and suffering of body. However, 

 it seems these vain imaginations are flitting away 

 before the light of reason and experience. In 

 Germany, as in England, they were first observed 

 on the jasmine, but now exclusively upon the potato, 

 though they will enter the beehives, to feed on the 

 honey found in them. This insect has been thought 

 to be peculiarly gifted in having a voice, and 

 squeaking like a mouse, when handled or disturbed ; 



