Curious Facts in the History of Insects

In Short

Frank Cowan’s 1865 volume is a comprehensive non-fiction compendium gathering the non-scientific history, folklore, and cultural associations surrounding insects. Instead of focusing on standard anatomical or biological classifications, the book charts human interactions with creeping, flying, and crawling creatures through historical accounts, ancient mythologies, poetry, folk remedies, and travel logs. It spans centuries of recorded human thought, tracing how various societies have worshiped, eaten, feared, and utilized insects. The work endures because it preserves a dense, fascinating mosaic of historical oddities, shifting human superstitions, and literary references, offering an entertaining look at the intersection between natural history and human belief.

The Story

The book begins by establishing a clear departure from standard biological works, steering away from insect anatomy and formal classification in favor of cultural history. Opening with the hard-shelled beetles, the narrative examines how ancient Egyptians revered the scarab as a celestial symbol linked to the moon and its twenty-eight-day cycle. It explores how classical naturalists like Pliny recorded beetles being worn around infants' necks as protective charms, while later European folklore associated blacksmith beetles with domestic quarrels and glowing fireflies with romantic fables or nighttime lanterns.

Progressing into household pests and urban infestation, the text documents the long, difficult relationship between humans and cockroaches. It details early maritime efforts to control them using domesticated hedgehogs, monkeys, and spiders, alongside the rise of professional Victorian bug-destroyers who turned pest extermination into a specialized trade. The focus then broadens to jumping and swarming insects like grasshoppers and locusts. The narrative outlines how grasshoppers featured in the diets of native populations, such as the California Digger Indians who gathered them via large pit-drives and roasted them in stone ovens, while European farmers suffered catastrophic agricultural losses from unexpected swarms. Locusts appear as biblical plagues, divine warnings, and instruments of fate; historical chroniclers record armies halting their marches after interpreting locust swarms as omens from God, while scholars attempted to decipher letters on their wings to predict upcoming wars.

Moving into the order Hymenoptera, the text explores the complex cultural footprint of ants, hornets, and bees. Ants feature as medical ingredients for treating gout, instruments of tribal torture, and symbols of diligence, while wild wood ants demonstrate chemical potency capable of harming small animals. Bees occupy a sacred and superstitious space: ancient writers like Virgil and Plutarch believed bees carried tiny stones as ballast to fly through heavy winds, while later European traditions asserted that bees would attack red-haired people or abandon hives touched by improper hands. Swarms of bees disrupt military expeditions, such as Mungo Park's African travels, or drive entire populations from ancient towns.

The narrative then traces airborne insects, detailing massive butterfly migrations across Europe and the Americas that local populations often mistook for omens of war or famine. It records folk remedies for driving away garden caterpillars through St. John's Eve fires, before turning to flies, fleas, and mosquitoes. Flies serve as symbols of unclean thoughts and political flatterers, while fleas inspire poetry, perform in microscopic street acts, and trigger absurd military responses. Finally, the book examines spiders and scorpions. It highlights famous historical captives, such as Pelisson in the Bastille, who befriended and trained spiders with music, alongside unusual accounts of individuals eating spiders as delicacies or medicinal cures. The work concludes with an extensive topical index, leaving the reader with a fully realized panorama of human insect lore.

How It Unfolds

The ancient scarab Early chapters trace the spiritual and symbolic significance of beetles in ancient Egypt, examining how scarabs represented lunar cycles and planetary gods in sculpture and folklore.

Pests and remedies The narrative examines household insects like cockroaches and glow-worms, detailing historical attempts to eradicate them with trained animals alongside folk superstitions regarding their presence.

Swarms and omens Focusing on locusts and grasshoppers, the text outlines their dual role as devastating agricultural plagues that foretold national disasters and as crucial sources of food for diverse cultures.

Stinging hives The book explores the rich mythology of bees and ants, highlighting ancient beliefs about bee ballast, medicinal uses of ant secretions, and historical accounts of deadly bee attacks.

Fleeing flights Accounts of massive butterfly and dragonfly migrations illustrate how unexpected natural phenomena stirred popular terror, prompting local populations to fear impending famine or war.

Spiders and prisoners The final sections investigate human interactions with spiders and fleas, recording unusual tales of captive prisoners training spiders, eccentric dietary habits, and historical medical treatments.

The People

Frank Cowan The compiler and author who conceives the project while researching in the Library of Congress. Driven by a desire to make entomology memorable to the general public, he gathers extra-scientific facts from historical chronicles, travelogues, and ancient texts, organizing them systematically while explicitly declining to guarantee the absolute truth of the ancient claims he records.

Pliny the Elder The classical Roman naturalist whose Natural History serves as a frequent source throughout the text. He represents ancient scientific authority, recording curious remedies such as hanging beetles around children's necks to cure maladies or using ants and spiders to treat venomous bites.

Mungo Park The Scottish explorer whose African expedition journals provide vivid real-world accounts of insect encounters. His writings document how wild bee swarms attacked his party's baggage train, scattering livestock, setting fire to supplies, and halting his journey.

Pelisson A political prisoner confined in the Bastille under Louis XIV. Deprived of normal companionship, he successfully tames a cell-dwelling spider by feeding it flies to the sound of a bagpipe, demonstrating animal discrimination and providing a touch of humanity within a bleak setting.

Tiffin & Son Victorian "Bug-Destroyers to Her Majesty" whose business history illustrates the commercial side of insect-human interaction. Dressed in cocked hats and swords, generations of this family turn domestic pest eradication into a formal contract trade.

In Its Own Voice

Context: In the preface, Cowan explains his motivation for compiling non-scientific insect lore and defines his editorial boundary regarding the historical accuracy of his sources.

"It was my prime intent, and one which I have endeavored to follow most carefully, to attach some fact, whatever might be its nature, to as many Insects as possible, to increase the interest, in a commonplace way, of the science of Entomology."

Context: Describing native culinary traditions in North America, a quoted local report details the preparation of a traditional grasshopper roast.

"Ten or fifteen minutes suffice to roast them, when they are taken out and eaten without further preparation, and with much apparent relish, or, as is sometimes the case, reduced to powder and made into soup."

Context: Discussing historical anecdotes regarding spiders, the text records how a French prisoner established a bond with an insect in his cell.

"Little by little the Spider used itself to distinguish the sound of the instrument, and issued from its hole to run and catch its prey."

What It's Really About

The book explores the intersection between the natural world and human imagination. Rather than asking how insects function biologically, Cowan investigates how human societies construct meaning around tiny creatures that are otherwise easily overlooked or reviled. The central argument is that extra-scientific associations—myths, omens, superstitions, and historical anecdotes—are essential tools for memory and cultural expression. Underneath its catalog of oddities, the book asks how fear, necessity, and observation drive human beings to turn insects into gods, medicines, meals, and monsters. It illustrates how different eras reflect their own anxieties onto nature, turning a swarm of locusts or a migrating flight of butterflies into reflections of human politics, impending wars, and divine judgment.

Why Read It Today

This volume appeals to readers who delight in historical curiosities, forgotten folklore, and the history of science. Rather than reading like a dry textbook, it feels like exploring a rich, dusty cabinet of curiosities filled with unexpected anecdotes from ancient Rome, medieval Europe, and 19th-century travel logs. It reveals a lost landscape of popular belief where people used beetle shards as cattle whistles, predicted military victories from butterfly wings, and hired specialized tradesmen in cocked hats to hunt bedbugs.

Readers should be prepared for the realities of a 19th-century text. The book contains period language, archaic spelling, and references to historical ethnic groups that reflect the terminology of the 1860s. Furthermore, because it relies on historical travelogues and ancient naturalists, many of the medical claims and physical descriptions are factually inaccurate—a point Cowan himself freely admits in his preface. Yet these period attitudes and eccentric beliefs are precisely what make the book valuable today. What stays with you after reading is a renewed appreciation for how imaginative, superstitious, and resourceful human beings have always been when trying to make sense of the natural world around them.