44 THE ENTOMOLOGIST, 



therefore would be time profitably employed by any lepidopterist 

 in investigating the subject. Experience proves that it is not all 

 hairy larvae which possess this painful property ; nay, that it is 

 confined to comparatively few of them. Why is this ? It seems 

 rather humiliating to entomologists of our own country that, 

 with almost one exception (that of Mr. Swinton), no researches 

 have been made which show any light upon what has too long 

 remained a " qusestio vexata," and that to learn anything respect- 

 ing urtication we must go to our friends in America, or it may be 

 here and there a Continental authority. Mr. Dimmock has 

 evidently bestowed much labour upon the subject himself, and 

 has sought for information from every available source. To 

 show what has been done in America the following short quota- 

 tions may be serviceable to many of the readers of the 

 ' Entomologist ' : — 



" Karsten, in 1848, described the anatomy of the poison-glands 

 at the base of the hairs of an American species of Saturnia. 

 Five illustrations of this kind of gland are to be found in the 

 stinging hairs of the larvae of Hyperchiria io and Hemileuca 

 maics, both common insects in parts of the United States. 

 Lintner and Riley have recorded their experiments in the 

 stinging power of these two species of larvae, and the latter 

 writer has given a list of the larvae of American species of 

 Lepidoptera which are known to sting. Lintner has experimented 

 further upon the stinging power of the larvae of Lagoa crispata, 

 and Miss Murtfeldt upon that of the larvae of Lagoa opercularis. 

 That the sting of some of these larvae can do lasting injury is 

 certain, for my mother, when twenty-seven years old, received 

 so severe a sting in the middle finger of one hand in brushing 

 away a larva from her neck, that the distal joint, healing only 

 after several months, remains somewhat stifi'ened and slightly 

 deformed, now thirty-seven years. For a time the stinging of 

 these bombycid larvae was attributed to the action of the hairs 

 in entering and wandering about in the flesh ; and even as late as 

 1881, long after the discovery of the glands at the base of the 

 hairs, Goossens advances the idea that the poison of the pro- 

 cessionary caterpillar of Europe comes from other glands. 

 Keller, in 1888, discusses the mode of in-tication in the pro- 

 cessionary caterpillar (larvae of Gastropacha), and figures the 

 glands at the bases of the thin hairs." 



