THE FUN OF SEEING THINGS 



229 



mass themselves together so that they 

 really look like massed up horsehair. 

 The popular myth that they come from 

 horsehairs is not only untrue but ut- 

 terly impossible. These are well- 

 known animals of a definite species, 

 coming from eggs with a definitely 

 known history." 



P. S. These animals pass their larval 

 history in two different hosts, and the 

 one in which the more common one 

 passes its life immediately preceding 



its tree life in the water is not a srass- 

 hopper, but a beetle. Sometimes they 

 are eight or ten inches long* when 

 they first emerge from the abdomen of 

 the beetle. 



I think your letter is a proper an- 

 swer to the matter, and it is certain 

 that these hairworms come from the 

 abdomen of insects, usually beetles, 



*One of the worms pictured measures a 

 little over eleven inches in length. 



A REMARKABLE MASS OF HAIR-I.IKE AQUATIC WORMS FOUND BY HAPPY POTTEF 



A YOUNG NATURALIST OF SOUND REACH, CONNECTICUT. 



Magnified about six diameters. 



