Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/448

 4 2 o Collectanea.

blow from the thing used for its destruction occasions a mortal injury to either men or animals. Therefore the Dar daol should be lifted with a shovel and burnt in the fire, and no harm will result. It is a pity that an insect so beneficial to the farmer for its activity in killing wire-worms and other destructive insects should be so relentlessly persecuted.

TJie Connach Worm.

The late well-known Irish scholar, William Hennessy, of the Public Record Ofiice, Dublin, a native of Kerry, told me that he had often heard in his youth that cattle were prone to a disorder called the " c'nough," and that it was believed to arise from their having swallowed a grub of some kind when grazing. I was enabled to identify the insect in question by noticing a clever pen- and-ink drawing on the margin of an ancient map of Connaught, preserved in the MS. room of the Library in Trinity College, Dublin, of about the date of 1600. It very faithfully portrayed the full-grown larva of Ch(zroca77ipa elpenor, the large " Elephant Hawk " moth, and beneath it was written " Ye Connaught Worme." The colour of the ink indicated that it was no modern addition, and the drawing seems probably of about the same age as the map. The similarity of sound evidently led to a confusion of ideas, the Irish name " c'nough " having no reference to that of the province. The caterpillar in question is a remarkable one, having the habit, in common with other larvae of Sphinx moths, when disturbed, of retracting the head and anterior segments of the body, and raising this swollen portion above the level of the rest, adopting the attitude of the Sphinx, from which the English generic name is derived. The ocellated markings of these front segments then appear like two pair of prodigious eyes. On the last segment of the tail projects a fleshy spine, which suggests a stinging apparatus. A full description of the superstition and its cure may be found in one of the MSS. collected by " the learned and ingenious Dr. Thomas Molyneux, F.R.S.," some of which were printed in The Natural History of Ireland, by Boate and Molyneux, 1755. The paper in question was communicated to him by a friend in the country, who states that the "c'nough "'