47 2 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Dec., '08 



of intense pain and annoyance until removed. As a matter 

 of fact, the ear wig appears to be rather an uncommon insect 

 in collections and is seldom seen in nature. The forceps are 

 used in arranging the true wings in folding them upon the 

 back, the insects being harmless to the last degree. What 

 were usually pointed out to me as ear wigs were several kinds 

 of centipedes or millipedes. Some of the larger of these centi- 

 pedes can and do bite severely when roughly handled. The 

 house centipede or skein centipede, a really beneficial creature 

 which feeds largely on roaches, should never be grasped with 

 the bare hand as it is capable of inflicting a wound. 



We still retain a vivid recollection of an occasion upon 

 which there had been a wholesale sacking of bumble bees nests 

 and the slain bees strewed the ground in considerable numbers. 

 Upon picking up one of the dead bees for a good look, we were 

 very much pained and grieved because the headless corpse 

 stung us on the finger quite badly. She was dead, but it had 

 not occurred to her as yet. 



We cannot pass the Diptera by without saying a word re- 

 garding the mosquitoes. It is only a few years since the 

 mosquito was regarded as merely a troublesome insect, annoy- 

 ing but not to be regarded in any way as dangerous. To-day, 

 thanks to Economic Entomology, the mosquito is known to 

 IK- the transmitter, if not the source of yellow fever, malaria, 

 and elephantiasis ; three very serious diseases, all of which are 

 on the wane in civilized countries, because of rational treat- 

 ment made possible by the sacrifices of heroic scientific investi- 

 gators. When the relation of the common house fly to disease 

 shall have been fully studied we expect revelations more as- 

 tounding than the facts mentioned above. There is an old ex- 

 pression and I believe it is a verp ancient one, "As harmless 

 as a fly." Go back for a few hundred years to the time when 

 the first rays of the light of modern hygiene had not as yet 

 penetrated the inky gloom of ignorance. During the early 

 part of the i/th century, in the immense city of London, be- 

 fore the coming of the "Great Plague," and the fire that fol- 

 lowed it, sanitary sewers were unknown, the gutters ran filth 



