Lo!

by Charles Fort

  Clouds streaked counties. They moved northward, reaching London, upon the 14th, pelting into the streets, and filling gutters. Children scooped them up, filling bags and pails with them, and “played store” with them. Multitudes went on as far as Worcester.

  Upon the 14th, “a countless multitude” of other ladybirds arrived upon the coasts of Kent and Surrey, and these clouds, too, seemed to have come from France. They rattled, like colored hail, against windows. They were “yellow perils,” and the inhabitants were alarmed, fearing a pestilence from accumulations of bodies. Fires were built, to burn millions of them, and people who had never shoveled ladybirds before took up the new employment.

  The next day, “an enormous multitude” of new arrivals appeared at Dover, coming as if from France. The people who were out in this storm carried umbrellas, which soon looked like huge sunflowers. People, stopping to discuss the phenomenon, gathered into bouquets. The storm abated, and umbrellas were closed. All blossomed again. Another cloud rolled in from no place or origin that has ever been found out. These living gushes from the unknown moved on toward London, and in accounts of them, in Land and Water, are amusing descriptions of the astonishment they caused. There is a story of five hypnotized cats. A multitude alighted upon a lawn. Five cats sat around, motionless, gazing at the insects. A woman tells of her bewilderment, when, looking out at her lines of wash, which had been spotless, she saw garments hanging blotched and heavy. At Shoeburyness, the ladybirds pelted so that men in brickyards were driven from their work. Unless from celestial nozzles living fountains were playing down upon this earth, I cannot conceive of the origin of these deluges.

  Some entomologists tried to explain that the insects must have gathered in other parts of England, having flown toward France, having been borne back by winds to the southeastern coast of England.

  If anybody accepts, with me, that these insects were not English ladybirds, and that they did not come from France, and did not keep on coming, day after day, to one point, from Holland, Sweden, Spain, Africa—and here consider the feeble flight of ladybirds—but if anybody accepts with me that these ladybirds did not fly from any part of this earth to their appearing-point, I suppose that he will go on thinking that they must so have flown, just the same.

  That there are data for thinking that these insects were not English ladybirds:

  In the London Standard, August 20, there is a description of them. “They all seemed to be much larger than the common ladybirds, of a paler color, with more spots.” In the Field, August 28, someone writes that all the insects, except a few, were yellow. So far as he knew, he had never before seen specimens of this species. The Editor of the Field writes: “The red is paler, and there are diverse, slight differences that rather indicate a foreign origin.” He says that, in the opinion of Mr. Jenner Weir, the naturalist, these ladybirds were different from ordinary English specimens.

  But these millions must have been very ordinary somewhere.

  That there are data for thinking that these insects came from neither France nor Belgium:

  Such as hosts of observations upon the swarms, within a mile or two of the English coast, and no findable record of an observation farther away, or nearer France. There is, in newspapers of Paris, no mention of appearances of ladybirds anywhere upon the continent of Europe. There is no mention in publications of entomological societies of France and Belgium. But any of these enormous clouds leaving a coast of France or Belgium would have attracted as much attention as did an arrival in England. Other scientific publications in which I have searched, without finding mention of observations upon ladybirds in France, or any other part of the Continent, are Comptes Rendus, Cosmos, Petites Nouvelles Entomologiques, Rev. et Mag. de Zoologie, La Science Pour Tous, L’Abeille, Bib. Universelle, and Rev. Cours. Sci. In Galignani’s Messenger (Paris) considerable space is given to accounts of the invasions of England by ladybirds, but there is no mention of observations anywhere, except in England, or within a mile or so of the English coast.

  This is the way an invasion began. A great deal was written about conditions in the invaded land. Probably the scarcity of insects in England was unprecedented. There was no drought. It is simply that the insects had died out. And billions were coming from somewhere else.

  “Margate Overwhelmed!”

  In the Field, August 28, a correspondent writes: “On Wednesday (25th) I went to Ramsgate by steamboat, and, as we approached within five or six miles of Margate, complaints of wasps began to be heard. I soon ascertained that they were not wasps, but a bee-like fly. As we neared Margate, they increased to millions, and at Margate they were almost unendurable.” Some specimens were sent to the Editor of the Field, and he identified them as Syrphi. There had been a similar multitude at Walton, on the coast, about thirty miles north of Margate, the day before.

  The little band of scouts, at Ashford—they carried lanterns. Then green processions—yellow multitudes—the military-looking Syrphi, costumed like hussars—

  A pilgrimage was on.

  “Thunder bugs” appeared between Wingham and Adisham. The tormented people of the region said that they had never seen anything of the kind before (Field, August 21). Wasps and flies “in overwhelming numbers” besieging Southampton (Gardeners’ Chronicle, September 18). London an arriving point—the descent of crane flies upon London—doorsteps and pavements looking muddy with them—people turning out with buckets of boiling water, destroying multitudes of them (Illustrated London News, September 18). This is one of the ways of treating tourists.

  I think that there is a crowd psychology of insects, as well as of men, or an enjoyment of communicated importance from a crowd of millions to one of the bugs. They were humming to England, not merely with bands playing, but each of them blowing some kind of a horn of his own. There are persons who would be good, if they thought that they could go to heaven, or so swarm in the sky, with millions of others, all tooting saxophones.

  Pilgrims, or expeditionaries, or crusaders—it was more like a crusade, with nation after nation, or species after species, pouring into England, to restore something that had been lost.

  In Sci. Op., 3-261, is an account of a new insect that appeared in England, in July of this year, 1869. For accounts of other unknown insects that appeared in England, in this summer, see the Naturalists’ Note Book, 1869-318; Sci. Gos., 1870-141; Ent. Mo. Mag., 1869-86, and February, 1870; Sci. Op., 2-359. It was a time of “mysterious strangers.”

  In the Times, August 21, someone noted the absence of small, white butterflies, and wondered how to account for it. In the Entomologist, Newman wrote that, up to July 12th, he had seen, of this ordinarily abundant insect, only three specimens. Upon pages 313-315, half a dozen correspondents discussed this remarkable scarcity. In the Field, September 4, someone told of the astonishing scarcity of house flies: in more than six weeks, at Axminster, he had seen only four flies. London Standard, August 20—that, at St. Leonard’s-on-Sea, all insects, except ladybirds and black ants, were “few and far between.” In Symons’ Met. Mag., August, 1869, it is said that, at Shiffnal, scarcely a white butterfly had been seen, and that, up to July 21st, only one wasps’ nest had been found. Correspondents, in the Entomologist, September and October, mentioned the scarcity of three species of white butterflies, and noted the unprecedented fewness of beetles, bees, wasps, and moths. Absence of hornets is commented upon, in the Field, July 24.

  They were pouring into England.

  An army of beetles appeared in the sky. At Ullswater, this appearance was a military display. Regiment after regiment, for half an hour, passed over the town (Land and Water, September 4).

  The spiders were coming.

  Countless spiders came down from the sky into the city of Carlisle, and, at Kendal, thirty-five miles away, webs fell enormously (Carlisle Journal, October 5). About the 12th of October, “a vast number” of streamers of spiders’ web and spiders came down from the sky, at Tiverton, Devonshire, 280 miles south of Carlisle. See t
he English Mechanic, November 19, and the Tiverton Times, October 12. As if in one persisting current, there was a repetition. Upon the morning of the 15th, webs, “like pieces of cotton,” fell from the sky, at South Molton, near Tiverton. Then fell “wondrous quantities,” and all afternoon the fall continued “covering fields, houses, and persons.” It was no place for flies, but to this webby place flies did come.

  Species after species—it was like the internationalism of the better-known crusades—

  The locusts were coming.

  Upon the 4th of September, a locust was caught in Yorkshire (Entomologist, 1870-58). There are no locusts indigenous to England. At least up to May 1895, no finding of a locust in its immature state had ever been recorded in Great Britain (Sci. Gos., 1895-83). Upon the 8th and 9th of October, locusts appeared in large numbers, in some places, in Pembrokeshire, Derbyshire, Gloucestershire, and Cornwall. They had the mystery of the ladybirds. They were of a species that, according to records, had never before appeared in England. An entomologist, writing in the Journal of the Plymouth Institute, 4-15, says that he had never heard of a previous visit to England by this insect (Acridium peregrinum). It seems that in all Europe this species had not been seen before. In the Ent. Mo. Mag., 7-1, it is said that these locusts were new to European fauna, and were mentioned in no work upon European Orthoptera.

  At the meeting of the Entomological Society of London, Nov. 15, 1869, it was decided, after a discussion, that the ladybirds had not come from France, but had flown from places in England, and had been carried back, by winds to other parts of England. There was no recorded observation to this effect. It was the commonplace ending of a mystery.

  I add several descriptions that indicate that, in spite of London’s most eminent bugmen, the ladybirds were not English ladybirds. Inverness Courier, September 2—“That they are foreigners, nobody doubts. They are nearly twice the size of the common English lady birds, and are of a paler color.” See the Student, 4-160—“the majority were of a large size, and of a dull, yellow hue.” In the London Standard, August 23, it is said that some of the insects were almost half an inch long.

  That the locusts were foreigners was, by the Entomological Society of London, not discussed. Nothing else was discussed. Crane flies and Syrphi and spiders and all the rest of them—not a mention. I know of no scientist who tried to explain the ladybirds, and mentioned locusts. I know of no scientist who tried to explain the locusts and mentioned ladybirds—no scientist who wrote upon a scarcity of insects, and mentioned the swarms—no scientist who told of swarms, and mentioned scarcity.

  The spiders, in a localized fall that lasted for hours, arrived as if from a persisting appearing-point over a town, and the ladybirds repeatedly arrived, as if from an appearing-point a few miles from a coast. The locusts came, not in one migration, but as if successively along a persisting path, or current, because several had been caught more than a month before large numbers appeared (Field, October 23).

  A mob from the sky, at Burntisland, Scotland—“spinning jennys” that were making streets fuzzy with their gatherings on cornices and window sills (Inverness Courier, September 9). An invasion at Beccles was “an experience without precedent.” A war correspondent tells of it, in the Gardeners’ Chronicle, September 18. The invaders were gnats—correspondent trying to write about them, from an ink pot filled with drowned gnats—people breathing and eating gnats. Near Reading, “clouded yellow butterflies,” insects that had never before been recorded in Berkshire, appeared (Sci. Gos., 1869-210). At Hardwicke, many bees of a species that was unknown to the observer, were seen (Nature, 2-98). Field, August 21 and November 20—swarms of hummingbird hawkmoths. As described in Science Gossip, 1869-273, there was, at Conway, “a wonderful sight”—a flock of hummingbird hawkmoths and several species of butterflies. Clouds of insects appeared in Battersea Park, London, hovering over trees, in volumes so thick that people thought the trees had been set afire (Field, June 4, 1870). An invasion at Tiverton, seemingly coming with the spiders, “a marvelous swarm of black flies” made its headquarters upon the Town Hall, covering the building, turning it dark inside, by settling upon the window glass (Tiverton Times, October 12). At Maidstone, as if having arrived with the lady birds, a large flight of winged ants was seen (Maidstone Journal, August 23). Midges were arriving at Inverness, August 18th. “At some points the cloud was so dense that people had to hold their breath and run through (Inverness Courier, August 19). Thrips suddenly appeared at Scarborough, August 25th (Sci. Op., 2-292). At Long Benton, clouds of Thrips descended upon the town, wafting into houses, where they were dusted from walls, and swept from floors (Ent. Mo. Mag., 1869-171). Also, at Long Benton appeared an immense flight of the white butterflies that were so scarce everywhere else, gardeners killing thousands of them (Ent. Mo. Mag., December, 1869). At Stonefield, Lincolnshire, appeared beetles of a species that had never been seen there before (Field, October 16).

  It was more than a deluge of bugs. It was a pour of species. It was more than that. It was a pour on a want.

  Entomologists’ Record, 1870—that, in this summer of 1869, in England, there had been such an “insect famine” that swallows had starved to death.

  23

  Melbourne Argus, Jan. 21, 1869—there was a carter. He was driving a five-horse truck along the bed of a dry creek. Down the gulley shot a watery fist that was knuckled with boulders. A dead man, a truck, and five horses were punched into trees.

  New Orleans Daily Picayune, Aug. 6, 1893—a woman in a carriage, crossing a dried-up stream, in Rawlings County, Kansas. It was a quiet, summery scene.

  There was a rush of water. The carriage crumbled. There was a spill of crumbs that were a woman’s hat and the heads of horses.

  Philadelphia Public Ledger, Sept. 16, 1893—people asleep in the town of Villa-canas, Toledo, Spain. The town was raided by trees. Trees smashed through the walls of houses. People in bed were grabbed by roots. A deluge had fallen into a forest.

  Bright, clear day, near Pittsburgh, Pa. From the sky swooped a wrath that incited a river. It was one bulk of water: two miles away, no rain fell (New Orleans Daily Picayune, July 11, 1893). A raging river jeered against former confinements. Some of its gibes were freight cars. It scoffed with bridges. Having made a high-water mark of rebellion, it subsided into a petulance of jostling rowboats. Monastically, I have to accept that no line of demarcation can be drawn between emotions of minds and motions of rivers.

  These sudden, astonishing leaks from the heavens are not understood. Meteorologists study them meteorologically. This seems logical, and is therefore under suspicion. This is the fallacy of all the sciences: scientists are scientific. They are inorganically scientific. Someday there may be organic science, or the interpretation of all phenomenal things in terms of an organism that comprises all.

  If our existence is an organism, in which all phenomena are continuous, dreams cannot be utterly different, in the view of continuity, from occurrences that are said to be real. Sometimes, in a nightmare, a kitten turns into a dragon. Louth, Lincolnshire, England, May 29, 1920—the River Lud, which is only a brook, and is known as “Tennyson’s Brook,” was babbling, or maybe it was purling—

  Out of its play, this little thing humped itself twenty feet high. A ferocious transformation of a brook sprang upon the houses of Louth, and mangled fifty of them. Later in the day, between banks upon which were piled the remains of houses, in which were lying twenty-two bodies, and from which hundreds of the inhabitants had been driven homeless, the little brook was babbling, or purling.

  In scientific publications, early in the year 1880, an event was told of, in the usual, scientific way: that is, as if it were a thing in itself. It was said that a “water spout” had burst upon the island of St. Kitts, B.W.I. A bulk of water had struck this island, splitting it into cracks, carrying away houses and people, drowning 250 inhabitants. A paw of water, clawed with chasms, had grabbed these people.

  In accordance with our general
treatments, we think that there are waterspouts and cloudbursts, but that the waterspout and cloudburst conveniences arise, when nothing else can, or, rather, should, be thought of, and as labels are stuck on events that cannot be so classified except as a matter of scientific decorum and laziness. Some of the sleek, plump sciences are models of good behavior and inactivity, because, with little else to do, they sit all day on the backs of patient fishmongers.

  As a monist, I think that there is something meteorological about us. Out of the Libraries will come wraths of data, and we, too, shall jeer against former confinements. Our gibes will be events, and we shall scoff with catastrophes.

  The “waterspout” at St. Kitts—as if it were a single thing, unrelated to anything else. The West Indian, Feb. 3, 1880—that, while the bulk that was called a waterspout was overwhelming St. Kitts, water was falling upon the island of Grenada, “as it had never rained before, in the history of the island.” Grenada is 300 miles from St. Kitts.

  I take data of another occurrence, from the Dominican, and The People, published at Roseau, Dominica, B.W.I. About eleven o’clock, morning of January 4th, the town of Roseau was bumped by midnight. People in the streets were attacked by darkness. People in houses heard the smash of their window panes. Night fell so heavily that it broke roofs. It was a daytime night of falling mud. With the mud came a deluge.

  The River Roseau rose, and there was a conflict. The river, armed with the detachables of an island, held up shields of mules, and pierced the savage darkness with spears of goats. Long lines of these things it flung through the black streets of Roseau.