the beards and
mustachios of the men were luminous. When the hair was wiped the
appearance ceased; but was renewed the moment any fresh drops fell on it.

But of all these remarkable showers, the greatest alarm has been
occasioned by _red rain_, or showers of blood as they have been
ignorantly called. In the year 1608, considerable alarm was excited in
the city of Aix and its vicinity by the appearance of large red drops
upon the walls of the cemetery of the greater church, which is near the
walls of the city, upon the walls of the city itself, and also upon the
walls of villas, hamlets, and towns, for some miles round the city. The
husbandmen are said to have been so alarmed, that they left their labour
in the fields and fled for safety into the neighbouring houses; and a
report was set on foot, that the appearance was produced by demons or
witches shedding the blood of innocent babes. M. Peiresc, thinking this
story of a bloody shower to be scarcely reconcileable with the goodness
and providence of God, accidentally discovered, as he thought, the true
cause of the phenomenon. He had found, some months before, a chrysalis
of remarkable size and form, which he had enclosed in a box; he thought
no more of it, until hearing a buzz within the box, he opened it, and
perceived that the chrysalis had been changed into a beautiful butterfly,
which immediately flew away, leaving at the bottom of the box a red drop
of the size of a shilling. As this happened about the time when the
shower was supposed to have fallen, and when multitudes of those insects
were observed fluttering through the air in every direction, he concluded
that the drops in question were emitted by them when they alighted upon
the walls. He, therefore, examined the drops again, and remarked that
they were not upon the upper surfaces of stones and buildings, as they
would have been if a shower of blood had fallen from the sky, but rather
in cavities and holes where insects might nestle. He also noticed that
they were to be seen upon the walls of those houses only which were near
the fields; and not upon the more elevated parts of them, but only up to
the same moderate height at which butterflies were accustomed to flutter.
This was, no doubt, the correct explanation of the phenomenon in
question; for it is a curious and well-ascertained fact, that when
insects are evolved from the pupa state, they always discharge some
substance, which, in many butterf