Where does the butterfly net trope for catching crazy people come from?

THE best question of the day.

Crushworthy, even.

Hmmm..what I can find so far is that it’s really probably fishing nets or thrown nets of the type used to catch animals, and it may have come from cartoons- no reputable sources yet, though!

@crisw What are you searching on Google (or where else are you searching)?

@Jude Thanks!

Here’s one conversation.

I got that one by searching “big nets catch “crazy people””

@crisw Ok, so assuming that the comic strip Dreams of the rarebit fiend does have at least one comic with a butterfly net, that would put it between 1905 and 1914.

There’s a reference in an earlier play…Wilde perhaps? That supports the idea that crazy people ponce around with butterfly nets, so what better way to catch them?

My other girlcrush ^^.

This immediately made me think of the naturalist in The Hound of the Baskervilles who is first introduced bounding across the moors with a butterfly net. Moorrrrs.

Maybe it has something to do with how the “dog catchers” used to be portrayed in cartoons and such. They wore uniforms and used big “butterfly” nets to catch the dogs (I think the nets are actually fishing nets instead of gigantic butterfly ones).

People generally are on land, so even if they used fishing nets, the action of trapping people would be more analogous with a butterfly maybe? Just making this up, I really have no idea. But, generally I think it is true we compare humans to land animals, or things animals do on land, unless the person is literally in the water. Fat like a cow (I guess on occassion people say whale, especially if they are at the beach). Plays on the jungle gym like a monkey. A leopard cannot change its spots. A duck on a junebug.