THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 85 



Washington variety. The interests of these two cheerful creatures conflict. 

 Their sanguinary occupations lead them to the same hunting-ground, and 

 sometimes there are not worms enough to go round. 



On such an occasion as this a soldier-bug, awaking early with a bad 

 headache and a tremendous desire for a cocktail, found a solitary web- 

 worm, inserted his beak into the wriggling body, as one would put a straw 

 into a brandy smash, and began to suck. At this moment a wheel-bug 

 discovered the pair, and stuck his beak into the back of the soldier- bug, 

 and also began to suck. 



There was the soldier-bag in precisely the situation of Munchausen's 

 horse. As fast as he sucked the blood of the caterpillar, it was sucked out 

 of him by the wheel-bug. The observer's sympathy for the web-worm was 

 lost in admiration for the pluck of the soldier-bug and in sorrow for his 

 predicament, until both admiration and sorrow were overcome by the bril- 

 liant thought that in this observation was Munchausen substantiated. 



CiMEX. 



BOOK NOTICE. 



"American Spiders and Their Spinning-work. — A Natural History of 

 the Orb-weaving Spiders of the United States, with Special Regard to 

 their Industry and Habits : By Henry C. McCook, D. D., author 

 and publisher, Philadelphia, Vols. I. to HI., 18S9-1894." 



It is with pleasure that the nature-loving public congratulates Dr. 

 McCook on the completion of his self-imposed«and heroic task, — not alone 

 of five years' duration, but more nearly of twenty-five. The author started 

 out five years ago to give to the world a work on spiders, and he has not 

 only done this, but has also given us a model of patient, conscientious and 

 unprejudiced labour that will stand as a monument to its author long after 

 he has himself laid down his pen and passed to the unknown beyond; he 

 has given to the observer in whatever department of natural science, 

 a standard which he may well follow. Purity, both as to observa- 

 tion and conclusion, is stamped on every page. It is as if he had 

 plunged his cup into the clear, cool mountain stream and handed 

 us, direct, a refreshing draught of the crystal waters. He has evi- 

 dently not studied spiders in his pulpit, but if there is any other place 

 that he has visited, and whence he has not brought back some 



