Coming down I entered a tavern. The green air, reflected by the sun-wrought forests, invaded the bare little room; precious was the wine on the bar, precious the basket of bread on the floor wherein the eggs glittered. In a corner a little girl, with a red dress, had a greenish-pink maybug on her shoulder. I warned her; the little girl raised her arm, showed me a white thread disguised between her fingers. Tied with one leg to that thread, the bug was her toy. She took it from her garment, and dangled it like the pendulum of a dowser. This little country woman, character of a picture more than a human being, playing with a gem-colored bug, remains in my memory. On the beginning of our journey to Umbria, I see her as a sign of its alarming grace.

(Guido Piovene, Viaggio in Italia, 1953. Translation by italyisfalling.com)

My father told me once, in a rare moment of intimacy, that when he was a kid he used to tie threads to the legs of green maybugs to play with them. They flown and walked tied to the thread, for days. It was in the fifties, in Naples.)