40 THE EEPORT OF THE No. 36 



This plan would, in my opinion, make the handbook a most useful and 

 valuable work and guide. Moreover, much needless repetition would be avoided, 

 and the instructor could without much trouble select the portions best adapted to 

 his classes in both the Second and Third Years. 



THE EISE IN" PUBLIC ESTIMATION OF THE SCIENCE OF 

 ENTOMOLOGY. 



Rev. Thomas W. Fyles, D.C.L., Ottawa. 



" Listen not to those who tell thee 

 That ours is a worthless study, 

 Worthless from the very smallness 



Of the crbatures that we study; 

 Solomon, of men the wisest, 

 Taught a very different lesson." 



— The Insect Hunters, Ed. Newman. 



How great a change in popular opinion has taken place within the memory 

 of the older men among us in regard to the lesser objects of Creation, and those 

 who give attention to them. Men in former days were disposed to look upon 

 entomologists with contemptuous amusement. The people of Compton were wont 

 to speak of Gosse as "that crazy Englishman who goes about picking up bugs." 



The common people, both in England and Canada, were profoundly ignorant 

 as to the nature, habits and life-histories of the smaller living things; and where 

 Ignorance prevails. Superstition finds admission. 



Those were the days when the dragon-fly was called the Devil's Darning-N eedle ; 

 and Ocypus oJens, the Devil's Coach-horse. The Death's Head Moth (Acheroniia 

 atropos) was regarded as the herald of the king of terrors, and the red spider as the 

 harbinger of fortune. That prolific writer, Baring Gould, founded one of his best 

 stories upon the latter misconception. 



The most eri"oneous speculations in regard to minute living things were in- 

 dulged. I call to mind the look of complaisant amusement, befitting one who 

 possessed superior knowledge, with which a man once regarded me, when I told 

 him that the hair snake (Gordius varius) came from an egg, one of a chain of 

 eggs laid by the mother Gordius. He had been one of a party led by a guide 

 into the wilderness in search of moose. After tramping some miles, the hunters 

 came to a stream. The guide, looking into the water, exclaimed, "Ah, there are 

 moose not far away ! Here are moose-hairs turned into snakes." The guide said 

 this — an experienced guide; and my friend believed it. Confidence in the guide 

 is necessary for the belief in modern miracles. 



But while some country people were credulous, others were of a sceptical 

 turn of mind. 



A country clergyman, desirous of improving his people, invited a well-known 

 microscopist from the city to give a lecture in his parish. The gentleman came, 

 and took for his subject "The Amoeba." This creature — ^which belongs to the 

 Protozoa — appears as a mere limbless speck of sarcode. When an impulse to move 



