Dec., '08] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 467 



Popular Fallacies Regarding Insects ; and some 



Insects that are Poisonous. 

 BY W. R. WALTON, Harrisburg, Pa. 



In the paper which I shall present for your consideration 

 this evening- there is included at least one organism that is 

 entirely without the pale of entomology. I refer to the hair 

 worm, but as the economic entomologist is often called upon to 

 answer questions regarding this and other forms not included 

 in the class Insecta we think it quite proper that some of them 

 be mentioned in the present paper. 



When the speaker was a boy some ten years of age, his 

 family moved from a large city in the middle west, to a 

 farm in the southeastern corner of New York State. 



He had never been in the country before and the book of 

 nature now opened to him for the first time became a source of 

 wonder and delight. But this delight was not unmixed with 

 dread because of the tales which were told, of this insect or 

 that reptile, whose bite was instant death, or whose diabolical 

 ingenuity enabled it to sew up one's ears or perform other 

 unheard of and monstrous deeds of aggression. And from the 

 fact that many of these wonderful stories, emanated from 

 persons in whom he had the utmost confidence, they became 

 part of his boyish faith for a time. But as months passed 

 on and neither he nor his companions were attacked by the 

 beings of whom the terrible tales were told, he began to 

 doubt and (being nothing if not curious), at last to experi- 

 ment with them. The results of the experiments tended to 

 upset all of his lately acquired lore, but this gave him great 

 prestige in the eyes of his companions, who, still believing 

 in the old yarns, looked on with awe as he juggled garter 

 snakes, or wooden horses (Phasmidae), or held devil's darn- 

 ing needles by their wings while they champed their jaws in 

 fury and curled their venomous tails in fruitless efforts to 

 sew up his fingers. 



One of the most wonderful of the tales current among the 

 country folk of that region and one which I believe to be very 



