522 THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



important fact that the horsehair snake even more interesting. But the uncon- 



is horsehair in form only, but in reality trolled play of the uncultivated imagm- 



is an internal parasite (Gordius) of the ation is still more interesting, and still 



grasshoppers. more dangerous. All ignorance is dan- 



Of course you know better, because, gerous, or may become so. Our igno- 



when you were a boy, you many a time ranee of the transmission of disease germs 



pulled the hairs from horses' tails and by mosquitoes and other insects has cost 



put them in water to see them "turn" what the reader perhaps already knows, 



and squirm. And Bill, who lived down Popular literature is crowded with fanci- 



the road under the hill, doted on that kind ful assertions about nature and natural 



of thing. He did it, as you well remem- objects. Well informed readers might 



ber, even more frequently than you. And spend their lives in an attempt to run to 



now that fool naturalist, what a mean, earth such statements, and would die with 



unfeeling wretch to destroy the beauti- the falsehood far ahead, out of sight and 



fully poetic idea. I know you had lots still gaining speed. Any effort toward 



of fun ; nobody disputes it. You were the correction of such errors is usually 



an inquisitive, investigating boy; why a waste of labor and of time. But the 



don't you get young again ? Repeat some editor who disseminates the assertions, 



of that fun now. Get a bottle of water or allows his contributors to do so, what 



and a horsehair now and repeat the ex- of him? 



periment. But do not tell us how much 



more you know about nature than the A Bee .p Editor > s Epitaph, 



naturalist knows. Perhaps you are a EditQr Hutchinson, of the Bee- 



naturalist 



But to come back to this derivation 



Keepers' Review, says this in closing 

 a recent editorial item : 



of certain mechanical forms from nature „ when j am dead and l wish 



objects. Of course we did not get the tQ deserye the it h . < H e taught us 



notion of the screw from the snail, nor , , __ uL^ > » 



, ,, , 1 j- ^ 1 to keep more bees, 



of the monkey wrench from the monkey. . 



Many, probably most of these deriva- It 1 ^ems to us a better epitaph 



tions are fanciful and incorrect. It is would , be thls : , He showed us how 



true that certain of the lower animals, £ produce more honey. One might 



notably the insects, have organs some- , kee P more bees and not get more 



what resembling some of our median- h ° ne y * han , from less bees. Honey is 



ical tools, but as they are small, often what bee-keepers want. However, 



invisible to the naked eye, that these e ^ry man to his own preference, 



organs suggested the tools is hardly pos- whether it be _ more bees or more 



sible. That the long, filamentous ovipos- hone y- —American Bee Journal 



itor of the ichneumon fly suggested our Wrong you are, Editor York, and 



awl is unthinkable. That the serrated Brother Hutchinson is right. And 



ovipositor of the common sawfly sug- what else might one expect but the 



gested the saw is impossible. The saw- right on this subject from one whose 



fly's ovipositor is visible only to the slogan is "more bees" and who has 



microscope, but the saw was invented recently been for many weeks almost 



long before the function of lenses was at deaths door in his long siege in 



discovered. The monkey wrench has no the hospital? 



reference to any monkey. It is claimed Honey is for this world ; bees for the 



by some that it was invented by a French- next. Perhaps I had better amplify 



man named Monghie, who at the time that to make my meaning clear? 



lived in New Jersey, where Monghie Honey is for the dollars, the stomach, 



wrench soon became corrupted into mon- the utilitarian — it is of the earth, 



key wrench. There are also plenty of earthy. Bees are for the heart and the 



other "explanations." head, for mental interest, for uplift 



Yes, the evolution of the arts from the of the spiritual — these are heavenly. 



world of nature is a wonderful study! Bees fit the epitaph; honey the ap- 



And the transformations in nature are petite. 



