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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



bad reputation among the peoples whose country they inhabit. 

 In spite of these conclusions, the accuracy of which has been tested 

 with great care, there occur in the newspapers every year stories 

 of spider bites of great seriousness, often resulting in death or the 

 amputation of a limb. The details of negative evidence and of 

 lack of positive evidence need not be entered upon here, except 

 in so far as to state that in the great majority of these cases the 

 spider supposed to have inflicted the bite is not even seen, while 

 in almost no case is the spider seen to inflict the bite; and it is a 

 well-known fact that there are practically no spiders in our more 

 northern States which are able to pierce the human skin, except 



DiKj-EREKT Staoes OF CoNORiiiNCs SANGUisuGCS. Twicc natural size. (After Marlatt.) 



upon a portion of the body where the skin is especially delicate 

 and which is seldom exposed. There arises, then, the probability 

 that there are other insects capable of piercing tough skin, the re- 

 sults of whose bites may be more or less painful, the wounds being 

 attributed to spiders on account of the universally bad reputation 

 which these arthropods seem to have. 



These sentences formed the introduction to a paper read by 

 the writer at a meeting of the Entomological Society of Wash- 

 ington, held June 1st last. I went on to state that some of these 

 insects are rather well known, as, for example, the blood-sucking 

 cone-nose (Conorhinus sancjvisugns) and the two-spotted corsairs 



