250 INSECTS AT HOME. 



Another of these insects is rare in England, tbougli plentiful 

 on the Continent. It is known by the name of Waktbiter, 

 because its bite is supposed by the Swedish peasant to have 

 the effect of destroying the wart. Its scientific name is Dec- 

 ticus griseus. 



Very probably it really does have this effect, for there is no 

 doubt that these unpleasant and mysterious excrescences do 

 make their appearance and disappear without any assignable 

 reason. Only a few days before writing this account, I over- 

 heard a dialogue between some tradesmen's boys, who, after 

 the manner of their kind, were having a chat under cover of a 

 hedge, instead of going about their duties. One of them made 

 some jeering remarks to the others respecting the warts with 

 which his hands were covered. The boy replied that he did 

 not care for the warts, as he was going to have them charmed 

 away next morning, and appealed to another boy, who said that 

 his hands had been covered with warts, but that he had been 

 to an old man who charmed them away for twopence. He 

 held out his hands in proof of his assertion ; and certainly, 

 whatever may formerly have been the state of his hands, there 

 was then not a wart upon them. 



It is remarkable, by the way, that scarcely any two wart- 

 charmers employ tlie same method. Some rub the wart with 

 a piece of bread or oat-cake, which they bury in the earth, the 

 wart being supposed to vanish as the bread decays. Some 

 hold the afflicted hand between their own, and blow on it, while 

 some stroke the spot and repeat some gibberish in an undertone. 

 All, however, appear to agree in one point — they must be paid, 

 and paid in coin. However small the fee, it must be a 

 hoiid fide payment in cash, as otherwise the charm loses its 

 efficacy. 



The only solution of the problem that has been afforded is, 

 of course, that the cure is wrought, not by the means employed 

 by tlie charmer, but by the imagination of the person who is 

 acted upon. But how imagination can so act upon a wart as to 

 cause it utterly to vanish is in itself a problem which requires 

 solution, and certainly has never received one. It is easy to see 

 how imagination can cure an imaginary malady, but how 

 an emotion of the mind can absorb into the system an externa] 

 excrescence of the skin is not so easy of comprehension. 



