China is rich in natural resources, and the literature of the past has been recorded in detail, and there will be some gratifying discoveries in the sea of foreign cultures. Recently, when I read history, I found an interesting creature in the Qing Dynasty Guangdong scholar Qu Dajun's "Guangdong New Language"--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This "Luofu Immortal Butterfly" is produced in the famous Taoist mountain of Luofu Mountain in Guangdong, which is famous for the cultivation of Taoist celebrities Ge Hong and Bao Gu, and the legend that this "Luofu Immortal Butterfly" is the Taoist clothes after Ge Hong and Bao Gu Shengxian, which is quite mythical.
Yuan Wang Meng "Ge Zhichuan Migration Map" Axis Collection of the Palace Museum
The axis of "Ge Zhichuan Migration Map" shows the scene of Ge Hongbaogu and his wife moving to Luofu Mountain, which Wen Zhenheng of the Ming Dynasty believes is a painting hanging when they moved to a new home.
With this curiosity, I wondered if this fairy butterfly really existed, and carefully read Qu Dajun's record in the "Guangdong New Language" "Big Hu Butterfly" article: "Big Hu Butterfly, only Luofu Hu Butterfly Cave has it." Taste the flowers and trees, and see people moving, even if they move, they are not far away. "This large butterfly is produced near the Butterfly Cave in Luofu Mountain, which is under the Yunfeng Rock and inside the Water Curtain Cave, and it is recorded that the Butterfly Cave is overgrown with ancient trees, and the butterflies appear at four o'clock. According to the above records, we can guess that there should be many host plants or honey source plants that the butterflies eat around the butterfly cave, which is why the butterflies here are colorful at four o'clock.
Illustration of the prints of the Butterfly Cave on Luofu Mountain (picture from "100 Poems of Luofu")
Next, Qu Dajun quoted a poem by his friend Chen Zi in the text, which has the sentence "Trim the eyebrows like poplar leaves, embroider the abdomen like a hanging bag", and he also mentions that the large butterfly "spreads its wings and diameter ruler", which can be speculated that this large butterfly should be a large moth. At the end of the "Big Butterfly" article, Qu Dajun said: "The Luofu people like to feed customers with butterfly cocoons, and give them to the mountains to return to the mountains", it can be known that this moth cocoon can be used for weaving, coupled with the author's text mentions many places to wrap the eggs with black oak leaves, we have reason to speculate that this legendary "Luofu Immortal Butterfly" is the Attacus atlas, which is the largest lepidoptera insect in China, because of its gorgeous color and wingspan of 18-21 cm, it is also known as the "Emperor Moth". Moreover, because the tip of its forewings takes on the shape of a snake's head, it is also commonly known as the "snakehead moth".
Large silkworm moth
Larvae of the great silkworm moth
Such a huge and strange large silkworm moth appeared in a unique location in Luofu Mountain, no wonder it will be attached to a magical legendary animal, it in addition to the appearance of surprise, in fact, its cocoon is also a good textile material, very early on the Chinese ancients chose many suitable for spinning large silkworm moth species, their silk is more flexible, can be used to make guqin strings, fishing lines and so on. The most common in China is actually the quercus silkworm, which is mainly distributed in northern China, and was originally half-wilded in Chinese on Ailanthus (樗) and castor, which looks similar to the large silkworm moth, but does not have the latter's bright color and wide wings, but because it is more common, it appeared in Song Dynasty paintings very early.
Silkworms
The Palace Museum in Beijing has a Painting of the Southern Song Dynasty Tuan Fan "Green Maple Giant Butterfly", which depicts a silkworm flying towards a maple tree, but the painter does not depict the host plant of the silkworm, and the two are matched completely for the sake of artistic aesthetics.
Southern Song Dynasty Anon. "Qingfeng Giant Butterfly Figure" Collection of the Palace Museum
In the face of such a huge and gorgeous insect, the ancient Chinese did not further observe it and classify it into moths, but classified them with butterflies through stimulating visual responses, so there were common names such as "big butterflies" and "giant butterflies". The people of Luofu Mountain even named the large silkworm moth "Little Phoenix" to show their cherishing.
Large silkworm moth
The great silkworm moth has a peculiar appearance, but it is distributed in the mountains of southern China, where the ancient culture was backward, so it was not noticed until very late, and the first important place for its fame was Luofu Mountain in Guangdong. The "fairy butterfly" of Luofu Mountain was very famous in the Qing Dynasty, so that the people of Guangzhou had to catch it in the cage every year when the large silkworm moth appeared more, and even held a "big butterfly meeting", according to Qu Dajun, "Guangzhou people to have a big hu butterfly meeting, winter moon, so that people into Luofu, needles and cotton ribbons easy to cocoon in the pasture." Spring beard butterfly out of the cocoon... Store it in a silk bamboo cage, carry it to the floating hills, between the spikes and stones, and win or lose with the size of the butterfly, and buy flowers and treats..."
Large silkworm moth
After reading this paragraph, I feel that Guangdong people really can play, before only know bullfighting, cockfighting, cricket fighting, did not expect that in ancient China there were fighting butterflies. However, the matter of the large silkworm moth, which is victorious with the flower treaty, is still debatable, because the large silkworm moth degenerates after the cocoon, the mouth organ degenerates, and it does not drink or eat at all, and the only purpose of their feathering is to find a mate, complete the mating and breeding task, and then die.
The people of Guangzhou seem to love the giant silkworm moth very much, and Qu Dajun also said: "At the turn of spring and summer in Guangzhou, there are people selling large butterflies in the market, each with dozens of dollars, only five or six inches large, hanging on a bamboo pole, not flying or eating at the end of the month, more than ten eggs, gradually unable to move, thinking that it is dry and dead, touching it and squirming, and those who are like it are several months of naihua. "From the above, it can be seen that the large butterflies sold are smaller than the large silkworm moths of the eucalyptus, and may be similar species such as the silkworm and the large silkworm moth (Samia cynthia).
Eyebrow-striped large silkworm moth
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the painter ren Xiong of the Sea School also seems to be quite interested in the story of the Luofu Immortal Butterfly, he specially depicted this "Luofu Immortal Butterfly" in the "Yao Dahai Poetic Intention Book", the picture title is "Luofu Five-Color Butterfly", the center of the painting does depict the image of the large silkworm moth, but it is not very accurate, including the following green phoenix butterfly and the red silkworm moth are not very accurate, I think the painter should have seen this kind of butterfly and moth, but based on the tradition of Chinese painters accustomed to silent painting, many details are paradoxical.
Qing Renxiong "Yao Dahai Poetry Intention Album" "Luofu Five Colored Butterflies" Collection of the Palace Museum
In the Qing Dynasty, Jiang Baoling also mentioned a Manchu painter Qingbao (Zi Baoyuan) who was good at drawing butterflies in the "Present Words of Merlin", who once climbed the XuanmiaoGuan Miluo Pavilion on the Chongyang Festival and used his fingers to depict a giant butterfly next to the portrait of the white jade toad Daochang (who was the founder of the Song Dynasty Taoist Jindan Sect Nanzong, who had been practicing at Luofu Mountain during his lifetime), and Jiang Baoling called it "vivid and lively, like a Luofu immortal butterfly, lifelike and flying." ”
With the reduction of the Luofu Mountain Black Silkworm Moth, although its fame still remains in the historical documents, but not many people know about this magical creature, and when Qi Baishi followed the previous painter's drawing of the Luofu Immortal Butterfly, he did not know what it was, and could only depict a black phoenix butterfly next to the Luofu plum blossom with the same name as the Great Silkworm Moth.
Modern Qi Baishi "Luofu Immortal Butterfly Diagram" axis Private collection
The hobbies of the people of Guangzhou naturally attracted the attention of Westerners in China at that time, and they were also captivated by this magical oriental giant moth, in 1842 London H. G. Bohn published the entomologist E. Bohn. Donovan's Natural History of the Insects of China, in which the beautiful moth is depicted in exquisite illustrations, depicting the large silkworm moth spreading its wings and resting on a branch of a flowering citrus plant, and the painter thought that this beautiful moth would collect nectar.
Print of the great silkworm moth in the Chinese Insect Museum
Europeans' hunting of oriental naturalistic treasures is not only at the level of academic research, more foreigners in China are affected by the naturalistic trend in the European people at that time, and they can't wait to find all kinds of oriental naturalistic characteristics of the items, of which paintings depicting various exotic animals and plants in the East are naturally the first choice, and the great silkworm moth, as a famous magical creature in Guangzhou at that time, was also depicted by export painters into the grass paintings sold to the West. Today we can also find a painting of a grass painting of the large silkworm moth from the National Museum of Suglai in the United Kingdom, which shows more scientific and accurate than Donovan's, and the large silkworm moth is resting on the branches of the black oak.
Late Qing Dynasty Anon. Black Oak Silkworm Moth Grass Painting The National Museum of Scotland, United Kingdom
Stamps of the great silkworm moth issued by Japan
From the change of a thing can understand history, especially with the help of historical images, we can more deeply understand how the ancestors who once lived in this land once lived, what kind of culture they had and the knowledge of dealing with nature, like this Luofu Mountain's black silkworm moth, it was once famous in Guangdong and even the West in the name of the Luofu Fairy Butterfly, and now it has become obscure, not only because of the forgetting of culture, but also because of changes in the environment that make this strange creature more and more difficult to see. Today, when we explore the past, we should reflect on today's behavior, and passing on culture and nature to future generations requires each of us to work hard to practice.