MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES: ODD DRAGONFLIES, ENGLISH CHANNEL HOPPING SPIDERS AND INVADING GRASSHOPPERS

Folks, today I am looking at insects again after a gap of what seems like a few months. I found the earliest report, on poisonous dragon-flies in Lancashire in 1935, only a few hours ago whilst looking through a book in the Local Studies Library in Macclesfield. The other two items, on travelling spiders in 1991 and a grasshopper invasion of New Delhi, India, in 1994 are from Strange Nature <>The Country Diary of a Cheshire Man by A.W. Boyd the author gives the following information:

September 6th, 1935.

A large dragon-fly was caught in a Royton (Lancashire) cotton-mill, and the harmless “edder” inspired wonder and terror as well on account of the imagined sting in its tail. Not for nothing have the dwellers in that town been long famed for a genial simplicity, ever since the day when “the Royton seven came home in eight cabs.” The dialect name “edder” ( I have also heard “edderbowt” in Cheshire) is the same word as “adder”, and goes to show that the blame-less dragon-fly has long been thought of as a venomous beast. Near Oldham large and small ones are known as “penny and haw`penny edders.” (2)

So here we have an identical situation with regards to the folkore of Durham and Wearside a few hundred miles away.

Concerning the Channel hopping spiders:

French spiders `flew in on hot air`

“ Reports of an invasion of French spiders through the Channel tunnel are greatly exagerated. The scientist who discovered the spiders said that a gust of hot air was likely to have blown in the arachnids from the Continent. The scientific journal, Nature, reports this week that the first French spiders to have entered Britain from the Channel tunnel are two linyphiid spiders – a male and a female – common in northern Europe and unheard of in Britain..

“ The first tourists to emerge from the British end of the Channel tunnel were not Frenchmen in search of warm beer and boiled mutton served with mint sauce, but spiders,” Nature says.

The source for the story was a scientific paper in the London Journal of Zoology entitled “ Minicia marinella (Araneae: Linyphiidae), a spider new to Britain from the Channel tunnel site.” It was written by Rowley Snazzell, a spider specialist at the Institute of Terrestial Ecology in Wareham, Dorset….However, a more detailed investigation of the paper reveals that Mr Snazell found the eight-legged tourists in the summer of 1987, three years before British and French construction workers shook hands beneath the sea to celebrate their breakthrough..”

“It is most unlikely that the spiders would have anything to do with the operations of the Channel tunnel,” Mr Snazell told The Independent. Far more likely is that they arrived in Britain having floated over the Channel on strands of spider silk….(3)

Finally, Grasshopper invasion brings New Delhi to a sudden halt.

The first evidence of the invasion was the crunching sound beneath Vinoo Samuel`s motorcycle wheels. Then came the sting of tiny bodies slamming into his face. Within minutes he was surrounded. “ They flew in hordes,” said Mr Samuel, aged 30, who witnessed the invasion of the grasshoppers while driving home from work.

People panicked. They were hopping around, brushing them off. They covered the windshields of the cars.” Last week hundreds of thousands of grasshoppers rose from their usual habitat in the marshes along the Yamuna River and headed for the lights of the big city……..These are not the locusts of Biblical lore, nor are they the crop-devouring locusts that annually


Assault Pakistan and Rajasthan. “These poor little things,” said Inderjit Singh Malhi, a government entomologist. “ They are attracted to light – that is why they are getting into houses and flats.”

According to Mr Malhi, they spilled into the alien “concrete jungles of Delhi” where they were killed in their thousands beneath vehicles. – Washington Post (4)

1 R.Muirhead Flying Snakes and Jumping snakes – a Worldwide Survey. CFZ Yearbook 2010 pp 163-179
2 A.W. Boyd The Country Diary of A Cheshire Man (1946) p.95
3 The Independent July 27th 1991 French spiders `flew in on hot air`
4 The Guardian/Washington Post August 30th 1994 Grasshopper invasion brings New Delhi to a sudden halt.

And now for all you lovers out there, a selection from Billy Bragg. (O.K. I know Valentine`s Day is over, give me a break!)

The Milk Man of Human Kindness Billy Bragg

If you`re lonely, I will call
If you`re poorly, I will send poetry

I love you
I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint

If you`re sleeping, I will wait
If your bed is wet, I will dry your tears

I love you
I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint

Hold my hand for me I`m waking up
Hold my hand for me I`m waking up
Hold my hand for me I`m making up
Won`t you hold my hand – I`m making up

If you are falling, I`ll put out my hands
If you feel bitter, I will understand

I love you
I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint.