considerable loss to truckers and grocers. The exaggerated reports of 

 1903 were not seriously considered ; and it was a matter of surprise 

 when they were reiterated the following year, and what was in reality 

 a hoax assumed most serious proportions, not alone because of wide- 

 spread alarm caused by erroneous reports of loss of life, but also 

 because of the very material loss to cabbage growers and others w'ho 

 handled this commodity, and the decided extension of the area in which 

 the hair-worm was detected. Encouraged by erroneous reports, evi- 

 dently incited in many cases by unscrupulous persons, the scare soon 

 became widespread, causing general fear of poisoning from Virginia and 

 West Virginia southward through the same States as were affected in 

 1903, and into Florida, and in addition westward to Kentucky, Illinois, 

 Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Colorado. 



DESCRIPTIVE. 



The cabbage hair-worm is aptly described as resembling a piece of 

 basting thread, of the thickness of a strand of corn silk, of a darning 

 needle, of a No. 36 or No. 40 thread, or like a horse hair ; Avhite in 

 color; found coiled, or coiling and uncoiling; stretched at length or 

 crawling in cabbage heads; its length varies from 2 to 9 inches, but 

 reports have been received of a creature found in the heads of cabbage 

 measuring 9 feet ! The imagination of newspaper writers as to color 

 runs riot through "green, white, light red, olive green, and j'ellow." 



As a matter of fact this hair-worm is filiform or thread-like, and when 

 it attracts attention on cabbage, measures generally from 4 to 8 incites. 

 One specimen, doubtfully of the same species, measured when uncoiled 

 22 inches or nearly 2 feet. The color is white or wliitisli, altliough it 

 sometimes has a pale brownish or greenish tinge. 



THE SPECIES IDENTIFIED. 



Many popular names have been bestowed upon this worm, including 

 "cabbage snake," "snake," "snake worm," "serpent," "reptile," 

 "cabbage rattlesnake," occasionally "cabbage worm," and seldom if 

 ever hair-worm. Most specimens submitted for identification have 

 proved to be what is known as Mermis albicans Diesing.^ This crea- 

 ture is neither an insect nor a snake, but one of the hair-worms of the 

 order Gordiacea. The principal species of this order belong to the gen- 

 era Gordius and Mermis, and were treated somewhat at length in 1877.^ 



iThe studies of Diesing, Siebold, Meissner, and oMicrs liavc led (o the expressed 

 belief that JA. albicmts is frieroiy tlie niatiiic scxiud lOiiii u{ nvKiinutiid, the lat- 

 ter name iiaving priority. 



2Fir.st re])ort of the U. 8. Kntonioiogiciil Conmiisf^iun, jndjliylied in 1S77 (pp. 

 326-;iH4). Tlie hosts of hair-worms iiichide many Orthoptera (grasshoppers or 

 locusts, crickets, and katydids). They are sometimes parasitic on beetles, more 

 particularly Carabidse or ground beetles, on bees and Hies, on caterpillars of but- 

 terflies and moths, and even on snails. 



