lies, is of a red colour, resembling
blood, while in several moths it is orange or whitish.

It appears, however, from the researches of M. Ehrenberg, a distinguished
microscopic observer, that the appearances of blood which have at
different times been observed in Arabia, Siberia, and other places, are
not to be attributed to one, but to various causes. From his account, it
appears that rivers have flowed suddenly with red or bloody water,
without any previous rain of that colour having fallen; that lakes or
stagnant-waters were suddenly or gradually coloured without previous
blood-rain; that dew, rain, snow, hail, and shot-stars, occasionally fall
from the air red-coloured, as blood-dew, blood-rain, and clotted blood;
and, lastly, that the atmosphere is occasionally loaded with red dust, by
which the rain accidentally assumes the appearance of blood-rain, in
consequence of which rivers and stagnant waters assume a red colour.

The blood-red colour sometimes exhibited by pools, was first
satisfactorily explained at the close of the last century. Girod
Chantran, observing the water of a pond to be of a brilliant red colour,
examined it with the microscope, and found that the sanguine hue resulted
from the presence of innumerable animalculae, not visible to the naked
eye. But, before this investigation, Linnaeus and other naturalists had
shown that red infusoria were capable of giving that colour to water
which, in early times, and still, we fear, in remote districts, was
supposed to forebode great calamities. In the year 1815 an instance of
this superstitious dread occurred in the south of Prussia. A number of
red, violet, or grass-green spots were observed in a lake near Lubotin,
about the end of harvest. In winter the ice was coloured in the same
manner at the surface, while beneath it was colourless. The inhabitants,
in great dismay, anticipated a variety of disasters from the appearance;
but it fortunately happened that the celebrated chemist Klaproth, hearing
of the circumstance, undertook an examination of the waters of the lake.
He found them to contain an albuminous vegetable matter, with a
particular colouring matter similar to indigo, produced, probably, by the
decomposition of vegetables in harvest; while the change of colour from
green to violet and red, he explained by the absorption of more or less
oxygen. A few years ago the blood-red waters of a Siberian lake were
carefully examined by M. Ehrenbe