1870.] BOTANY AND ZOOLOGY. 109 



Tomato-Worms not Poisonous. — The Tomato-worm belongs 

 to an extensive group (the Sphinx family), almost all of which 

 have a stiflf pointed horn growing out of their tails — a merely 

 ornamental appendage, such as those which are distributed in 

 considerable numbers over the body of another magnificent larva 

 which we illustrated some time since. Why or wherefore it is 

 impossible to say, but this poor unfortunate Tomato-worm has 

 been selected by the popular voice, out of about fifty others 

 belonging to the same family, and found within the limits of the 

 United States — all of which have a similar horn growing out of 

 their tails, — to be falsely accused of using this horn as a sting. 

 The Tomato-worm and the Tobacco-worm are as Hke as two peas, 

 and produce moths which resemble each other so closely, that 

 entomologists for a long time confounded them together. Each 

 has exactly the same kind of horn growing on the hinder extremity 

 of its body ; yet while the Tomato-worm is generally accused of 

 stinging folks with his horn, nobody, so far as we are aware, ever 

 yet said that the Tobacco-worm would or could do so. The real 

 truth of the matter is that neither of them can sting, either with 

 his tail or with his head, or with any part of its body. Yet not 

 a season elapses but the newspapers publish horrible accounts of 

 people being stung to death by Tomato-worms, and earnestly 

 recommended those who gather tomatoes to wear heavy buckskin 

 gloves. These stories, however, have been contradicted so flatly 

 and so often, that latterly the penny-a-liners have struck off upon 

 another tack. Tomato-worms, it appears, do not sting with the 

 horn that grows on their tails, but they " eject with great violence 

 a green caustic fluid from their mouths to a distance of from 3 to 

 15 in." ! Now, what is the real truth about this matter ? Tomato- 

 worms do really discharge from their mouths, when roughly 

 handled, a greenish fluid, and so do the larva of almost all moths, 

 and so does every species of grasshopper with which we are ac- 

 quainted, and so do many different kinds of beetles. But it is 

 not true that they can spit out this fluid even to the distance of 

 a quarter of an inch, much less to the distance of 15 or even of 3 

 in. ; and especially it is not true that the fluid is poisonous. If 

 it were so, we should have been in our graves long ago ; for we 

 have had it repeatedly daubed over our fingers, but without the 

 least ill effects therefrom, and so have scores of other entomologists 

 in this country. The strangest thing of all is, that of two worms 

 almost exactly alike, one of which eats tomato-leaves, and the 



