70 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society Vol.X 



maybe several thousand years earlier, claimed that they were the 

 form of the name of Ahura-Mazda. When he created an element 

 of good, the Daeva (or devil), Ahrimainyus (or Ahriman, of 

 classic Persian) created its counterpart in evil. For the blame- 

 less land came that of sin and evil, and then in turn for each 

 creation of good, Ahriman countered with death, a serpent, the 

 winter and a wasp zvhose sting is very death to the cattle and the 

 fields* All the insects created later were by Ahriman, and in- 

 clude the flies, which by contact with the dead pollute every living 

 thing, scattering filth by the anus; the locust, the accused; the 

 winged gnats of evil ; the louse, the unclean and afflicter of man- 

 kind ; the scorpion ; the ants, of two species, those which steal the 

 barley grains, and those (especially attending the winged Daevas) 

 burrowing vast holes in the earth. 



The narrative of Zoroaster mentions no place but can only be 

 located in what is now Persia. It deals with stirring times, when 

 the races of Iran were engaged in titanic conflict with the races of 

 Tura, a division of original stocks of humanity which has re- 

 mained primary for the subsequent 8,000 years. It came when 

 cvilization was far from young, when iron was in ordinary use 

 as weapons, when armor of gold and silver was used, when 

 property rights were respected, when many rich men were spoken 

 of in the general terms as owning 1,000 domesticated Bactrian 

 camels, 1,000 horses, 1,000 cattle and 10,000 sheep. A wild fauna 

 had names, and probably a hundred animals are specifically men- 

 tioned. Of them all the wasp is the first. 



This fabled origin explains the superstition held throughout 

 ancient Egypt that the sting of the wasp was fatal to cattle. It 

 also throws light on the belief prevalent in Greece, and mentioned 

 by Herodotus, that human life became unsupportable to the north- 

 ward of the Black Sea on account of the vast number of wasps. 



* The translation is that of 1854, under the auspices of the East India 

 Co. The translation by James Darmstatter reads : " Thereupon Angra 

 Mainya countercreated the locust which brings death unto cattle and 

 plants." The translation by Sir Henry Rawlinson is more vague — " an 

 insect." The interpretation of the word in question is a matter for the 

 consideration of the various Avesta societies. If locust were the correct 

 translation, a totally different word would not have been employed in the 

 same brief Fargard for what appears later as locust. 



