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Fairy Yellow
Butterfly.--Distinguished from the preceding species by the dark marginal band surrounding the hind wing and the pale under surface. Expanse, 1.60-1.75 inch.
Early Stages.--Unknown.
This little species is found in the Gulf States.
RED RAIN
"The lepidopterous insects in general, soon after they emerge from the pupa state, and commonly during their first flight, discharge some drops of a red-colored fluid, more or less intense in different species, which, in some instances, where their numbers have been considerable, have produced the appearance of a 'shower of blood,' as this natural phenomenon is sometimes called.
"Showers of blood have been recorded by historians and poets as preternatural--have been considered in the light of prodigies, and regarded where they have happened, as fearful prognostics of impending evil.
"There are two passages in Homer, which, however poetical, are applicable to a rain of this kind; and among the prodigies which took place after the death of the great dictator, Ovid particularly mentions a shower of blood:
"`Saepe faces visae mediis ardere sub astris,
Saepe inter nimbos guttae cecidere cruentae.'
"(`With threatening signs the lowering skies were fill'd,
And sanguine drops from murky clouds distilled.')
"Among the numerous prodigies reported by Livy to have happened in the year 214 B. C., it is instanced that at Mantua a stagnating piece of water, caused by the overflowing of the river Mincius, appeared as of blood; and in the cattle-market at Rome a shower of blood fell in the Istrian Street. After mentioning several other remarkable phenomena that happened during that year, Livy concludes by saying that these prodigies were expiated, conformably to the answers of the aruspices, by victims of the greater kinds, and supplication was ordered to be performed to all the deities who had shrines at Rome. Again, it is stated by Livy that many alarming prodigies were seen at Rome in the year 181 B. C., and others reported from abroad; among which was a shower of blood which fell in the courts of the temples of Vulcan and Concord. After mentioning that the image of Juno Sospita shed tears, and that a pestilence broke out in the country, this writer adds that these prodigies, and the mortality which prevailed, alarmed the Senate so much that they ordered the consuls to sacrifice to such gods as their judgment should direct victims of the larger kinds, and that the decemvirs should consult their books. Pursuant to their direction, a supplication for one day was proclaimed to be performed at every shrine in Rome; and they advised, besides, and the Senate voted, and the consul proclaimed, that there should be a supplication and public worship for three days throughout all Italy. In the year 169 B. C., Livy also mentions that a shower of blood fell in the middle of the day. The decemvirs were again called upon to consult their books, and again were sacrifices offered to the deities. The account, also, of Livy, of the bloody sweat on some of the statues of the gods, must be referred to the same phenomenon, as the predilection of those ages to marvel, says Thomas Browne, and the want of accurate investigation in the cases recorded, as well as the rare occurrence of these atmospherical depositions in our own times, inclines us to include them among the blood-red drops deposited by insects.
"In Stow's `Annales of England' we have two accounts of showers of blood, and from an edition printed in London in 1592, we make our quotations: `Rivallus, sonne of Cunedagius, succeeded his father, in whose time (in the year 766 B. C.) it rained bloud three dayes: after which tempest ensued a great multitude of venemous flies, which slew much people, and then a great mortalitie throughout this lande, caused almost desolation of the same.' The second account is as follows: `In the time of Brithricus (A. D. 786) it rayned blood, which falling on men's clothes, appeared like crosses.'
"Hollingshed, Grafton, and Fabyan have also recorded these instances in their respective chronicles of England.
"A remarkable instance of bloody rain is introduced into the very interesting Icelandic ghost-story of Thorgunna. It appears that in the year of our Lord 1009 a woman called Thorgunna came from the Hebrides to Iceland, where she stayed at the house of Thorodd; and during the hay season a shower of blood fell, but only, singularly, on that portion of the hay she had not piled up as her share, which so appalled her that she betook herself to her bed, and soon afterward died. She left, to finish the story, a remarkable will, which, from not being executed, was the cause of several violent deaths, the appearance of ghosts, and, finally, a legal action of ejectment against the ghosts, which, it need hardly be said, drove them effectually away.