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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A Motherly Insect. Among insects, as 

 a rule, parents do not trouble themselves 

 much about their little ones. They instinct- 

 ively deposit their eggs in spots where the 

 larva? issuing from them will find a well- 

 provided table, and then go away, leaving 

 the larvae to look out for themselves. Not 

 so, says M. Albert Larbaletrier, in La Na- 

 ture, with the earwigs. The female of this 

 insect lays her eggs in the spring in bunches 

 in a cool and dark place ; then she sits on 

 them, covering them in every way she can, 

 leaving them only when she goes for food. 

 If they get scattered she immediately finds 

 it out, bestirs herself, looks about, and 

 gathers them up, one by one, till she has 

 got them together again. They hatch out 

 during the first half of June. The larva? 

 are at first white, weak, imperfect in form, 

 and hardly able to move. If left to them- 

 selves they would certainly perish very 

 soon. The mother, however, does not leave 

 them any more than she did her eggs ; but 

 she takes care of them, brings them food 

 during their first days, and then guides them 

 to the plants in the neighborhood. The lit- 

 tle ones, too, as if aware of their weakness, 

 do not wander away from their mother, and 

 at the first sign of danger gather around 

 her as chickens around a hen. The mother 

 stays with the larva? through all their molt- 

 ings, till they are transformed into perfect 

 insects, when she is taken away from them 

 by death. 



The Cherokee Theory of Disease. The 



Cherokee doctor, according to Mr. James 

 Mooney, in treating disease works to drive 

 out a ghost or a devil. According to the 

 Cherokee myth, disease was invented by the 

 animals in revenge for the injuries inflicted 

 upon them by the human race. The larger 

 animals saw themselves killed and eaten by 

 man, while the smaller animals, reptiles, and 

 insects were trampled upon and wantonly 

 tortured, until it seemed that their only hope 

 of safety lay in devising some way to check 

 the increase of mankind. The bears held 

 the first council, but were unable to fix upon 

 any plan of procedure, and dispersed with- 

 out accomplishing anything. Consequently, 

 the hunter never asks pardon of the bear 

 when he kills one. Next the deer assem- 

 bled, and, after much discussion, invented 



rheumatism, but decreed at the same time 

 that if the hunter, driven by necessity to 

 kill a deer, should ask its pardon according 

 to a certain formula, he should not be in- 

 jured. Since then, every hunter who has 

 been initiated into the mysteries, asks par- 

 don of the slain deer. When this is neg- 

 lected, through ignorance or carelessness, 

 the " Little Deer," the chief of the deer 

 tribe, who can never die or be wounded, 

 tracks the hunter to his home by the blood- 

 drops on the ground, and puts the rheuma- 

 tism spirit into him. Sometimes the hunter, 

 on starting to return to his home, builds a 

 fire in the trail behind him to prevent pur- 

 suit by the Little Deer. Later on, councils 

 were held by other animals, birds, fishes, 

 reptiles, and insects, each one inventing 

 some new disease to inflict upon humanity, 

 down even to the grub-worm, who became 

 so elated at the bright prospect in view that 

 in his joy he sprang into the air, but fell 

 over backward and had to wriggle off on 

 his back, as the grub-worm does to this day. 

 When the plants, who were friendly to the 

 human race, heard what had been done by 

 the animals, they held a council, and each 

 plant agreed to furnish a remedy for some 

 corresponding disease when man should call 

 upon it for help. While the great majority 

 of diseases are thus caused by revengeful 

 animal spirits, some are also caused by 

 ghosts, witches, or violations of ceremonial 

 regulations. 



Instinctive Movements of Children. 



M. Alfred Binet maintains, in the Revue 

 Philosophique, that the attempts of infants 

 to walk are instinctive, and not the result of 

 education. This seems to be indicated by 

 the more or less correlated movements which 

 an infant only three weeks old will keep up 

 if the soles of its feet are allowed to touch 

 lightly a suitable surface. M. Binet be- 

 lieves that the time at which a child learns 

 to walk depends, not on bodily conditions 

 only, but on its mental characteristics also. 

 He thinks he has established as a fact that 

 a child that can give its mind to placing its 

 steps, and whose attention is not easily dis- 

 tracted, learns to walk at an earlier age and 

 in a shorter time than more restless chil- 

 dren ; and that such children are character- 

 ized in later life by the important faculty of 



