38 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



The mistake, of course, in all this is, that Kingsley makes the " splitting " to occur 

 under water. Who ever saw, or heard of before, a dragon-fly bursting from its nymphal case 

 below the surface 1 Why, it would drown ! The nymph extracts oxygen from the water 

 by means of a gill-like arrangement within the abdomen ; the perfect insect breather 

 atmospheric air, through spiracles, as other imagos do. It is the nymph, or pupa, that 

 performs the climbing — not the fly. 



AVood, in his " Insects at Home," p. 273, says : 



" When the pupa has nearly completed its time it ceases to feed, and the respiration seems difficult 

 and labored. An irrepressible instinct then drives it to leave the water in which it has so lon^ lived : and, 

 seizing the stem of a reed or other aquatic plant, it crawls upwards until it is a foot or two above the 

 surface : clasping the reed firmly with its feet, it sways itself backwards and forwards until the pu])iil skin 

 splits along the shoulders and the wings and body of the perfect insect shows themselves beneath it," etc. 



Mr. Spence, in Chapter XXV of " Kir )y and Spance's Introduction to Entoraoloo^y," 

 points out a mistake made by the poet Darwin respecting the nut-curculio. Darwin's 

 lines referred to are : 



" So sleeps in silence the Curculio, shut 

 Tn the dark chamber of thecavern'd nut ; 

 Erodes with ivory beak the vaulted shell, 

 And quits on filmy wings its narrow cell." 



It is the maggot and not the beetle that quits the nut — its transformation takes place 

 underground • and the beak of the perfect insect would be better compared to ebony 

 than ivory. In connection with these line.s, Spence says : 



" The gratification which the entomologist derives from seeing his favorite study adorned with the 

 graces of poetry is seldom unalloyed with pain, arising from the inaccurate knowledge of the subject in the 

 poet." 



(4) Other entomological mistakes of authors seem to have arisen from, mere want of 

 consideration of the balance of circumstances. 



Edgar Allen Poe, in one of his highly sensational tales, tells of "a gold bug." This 

 bug, he informs us, was a scarab;eus ; but we are not to conclude that it was a right down 

 honest " tumble-bug." The term scarabteus was formerly used for beetles generally. It 

 may have been a sort of Cotalpa ; but it had some peculi-ir qualities ; ponderosity was one 

 — it was so heavy that it was used as a plumb ; but notwithstanding its great weight, it 

 was very active — it flew on before. Then too its pugnacity was remarkably — it bit its 

 captor's hand ; and it was not without suspicion of exercising poisonous qualities like the 

 centipede and the tarantula. / fieed hard/i/ say that the species has become extinct. 



I have no doubt that many other instances, such as I have adduced, of the entomo- 

 logical mistakes of authors could be found ; but these will suffice for the presnt occasion. 

 There is a satisfaction in turning the laugh against men of letters ; for some of them have 

 shown a disposition to under-estimate tho.se benevolent, amiable and altogether-worthy 

 gentlemen, who have been good enough to pursue the study of entomology for the benefit 

 of mankind. 



For example : Does Fennimore Cooper wish to portray an entomologist ? He does 

 so in Dr. Obed Batt ; and the crowning scene in which this personage is presented is 

 that in which he is brought forward by the Indians seated upon the Vespertillo llorribilis 

 Amer/canus with his butterflies and other " specimens " disposed about his person — con- 

 verting him into a sort of perambulating museum. 



Anc yet Fennimore Cooper was considered a decent sort of man ! I am told he was 

 a church varden ! ! 



But what shall we say of that horrible fellow Barham, the author of the Ingoldsby 

 Legends, and of the fate that he awarded to an amiable scientific gentleman 1 



You have read, I dare say, of Vidius Pollio, who, in the days of one of the Osesars, 

 was accustomed to throw his aged and worn out slaves into his fish-ponds to fatten his 

 lampreys for the market. To such a fate does Barham devote an entomologist, " Sir 

 Thomis." This good man, while searching for aympliic, tumbles into the water and is 



