SPIDER BITES AND ^^ KISSING BUGSr 31 



sordid and selfish, and our rule has often been largely influenced 

 and often entirely directed by the necessity of finding well-paid 

 places for young men with influence, and also by the constant de- 

 mands for fresh markets by the influential class of merchants and 

 manufacturers. 



More general diffusion of the conviction that while all share 

 the burdens of war, such good as comes from it is appropriated by 

 the few, will no doubt do much to discourage wars; but we must 

 ask whether there may not be another incentive to war which Wal- 

 lace does not give due weight — whether love of fighting may not 

 have something to do with wars. 



As we look backward over history we are forced to ask whether 

 the greed and selfishness of the wealthy and influential and those 

 who hope to gain are the only causes of war. We went to war 

 with Spain because our people in general demanded war. If we 

 have been carried further than we intended and are now fighting 

 for objects which we did not foresee and may not approve, this 

 is no more than history might have led us to expect. War with 

 Spain was popular with nearly all our people a year ago, and, while 

 wise counsels might have stemmed this popular tide, there can be 

 no doubt that it existed, for the evil passions of the human race 

 are the real cause of wars. 



The great problem of the twentieth century, as of all that have 

 gone before, is the development of the wise and prudent self-re- 

 straint which represses natural passions and appetites for the sake 

 of higher and better ends. 



SPIDER BITES AND "KISSING BUGS."* 



By L. O. HOWARD, 



CHIEF OF THE DIVI8I0X OF ENTOMOLOGY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGKICULTURE. 



ON several occasions during the past ten years, and especially 

 at the Brooklyn meeting of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science in 1894, the writer has endeavored to 

 show that most of the newspaper stories of deaths from spider bite 

 are either grossly exaggerated or based upon misinformation. He 

 has failed to thoroughly substantiate a single case of death from a 

 so-called spider bite, and has concluded that there is only one spider 

 in the United States which is capable of inflicting a serious bite — 

 viz., Latrodectus mactans, a species belonging to a genus of world- 

 wide distribution, the other species of which have universally a 



* A paper read before Section F of the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science at the Columbus meeting in August, 1899. 



