ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 



PHILADELPHIA, PA., NOVEMBER, 1920. 



Mental Attitudes toward Insects. 



Among other occupations, the editor of the NEWS gives 

 a course of lectures and readings to university students on the 

 history of entomology. The other day they were reading 

 Otto Keller's Die Antike Tierwelt, which called his attention 

 again to the long period in the history of civilized peoples 

 in which progress in zoology, and hence in entomology, was 

 very slow. It may seem difficult for a zoologist to realize 

 what must have been the mental attitude of many a cultured 

 Egyptian, Greek or Roman toward insects. But while the 

 editor was in this frame of mind (he is one unit of the fifty 

 millions who make up the rural population of these United 

 States), the butcher came. His business transacted, the 

 butcher observed that the coming winter was likely to be 

 cold only in its latter part because he had been feeling 

 the caterpillars along the road and they were hard to the 

 touch only at their hind ends! 



Anent an Increased Subscription Price. 



In the October NEWS (page 226) we asked all our readers 

 to fill in and mail to us a card, from a page near the back 

 cover, stating their willingness or unwillingness to subscribe 

 for the NEWS for 1921 at $2.50. About eighty replies have 

 been received, but we urge all others to whom the October 

 number has gone to send us their message on this question 

 at once, as we must hear from all our subscribers in order to 

 make our plans for 1921. 



Two Syntomidae New to Mississippi (Lep.)- 



Mr. W. C. Dukes, of Mobile, Alabama, has recently sent me two spe- 

 cies of Syntomidae (Lep.) from a new locality. They were taken on Cat 

 Island, Mississippi, in the Gulf of Mexico. The species are Cosmosoma 

 nuge Linn, and Didasys belae Grote. The former is found in Florida,. 

 West Indies, Central America and South America, and the latter, so far 

 as I am aware, has not been recorded outside of the State of Florida. 

 HENRY SKINNER. 



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