By DOROTHY PARKER ROWE
Nature Magazine, August-September 1944
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Step on a cricket, and it will rain.
Release a fly buzzing along a windowpane, and it will bring you good luck.
Catch the first butterfly you see in spring and bad luck will follow you all the rest of the year.
Count the spots on a hibernating ladybird beetle, and you will find a dollar for every spot you count.
If a honeybee circles around you, a letter is coming.
If a butterfly alights on your shoulder, you will receive new clothes.
Such are half a dozen of the innumerable superstitions that have been linked with the insect world. In all countries and all ages, these small, familiar creatures have been considered as connected in some way with misfortune and good luck. "Lucky bugs" and "soothsayer insects" are numerous in folklore. The commonest of everyday insects, at various times, have been supposed to have supernatural effect upon the weather and upon the fortunes of mankind.
SUPERSTITIONS ABOUT HONEYBEES INCLUDE THAT THEY HAVE A HIGH MORAL SENSE
Dream of ants, one superstition of early England has it, and you will be either happy and industrious, move to a big city, or have a large family. Whenever a stone has been overturned and an ants' nest revealed beneath, the stone must be replaced carefully, according to another belief, or bad luck will follow.
One early fall afternoon, I was plodding down a winding forest trail close on the heels of a Maine guide. Suddenly, my guide stopped. He pointed to a wasps' nest hanging low among the bushes.
THE SEVENTEEN YEAR CICADA WAS BELIEVED TO BE A PROPHET OF DISASTER
"We're going to have a mild winter," he assured me. "When wasps build their nests high, the snowdrifts are high. But when they build them near the ground, the winter is mild and snowfall light."
This belief is a weather-superstition that is accepted in many places. The fallacy lies in the fact that the wasp colony does not overwinter and hence it matters not at all to it how deep the snow drifts. A few fertilized queens hibernate outside the nest and all the workers of the colony die in the first freeze.
DRAGONFLIES ARE SUPPOSED TO BRING BAD LUCK TO FISHERMEN
Wasp-lore contains other odd superstitions besides this belief of the Maine guide. In central Europe, girls used to place a piece of paper from a wasp nest in their clothing. This was considered an infallible charm that would make their suitors love them the more. Such insect paper was also prized by old people who believed that spectacles cleaned with wasp-nest fragments enabled them to see better.
Clay from a mud-dauber's nest, at one time was held in high repute as a cure for boils. Such nests were treated with respect by housewives in some European countries because it was firmly believed that the woman who knocked down a mud-dauber's nest would shortly thereafter break all her dishes.