280 



men of a large brown spider, Lycosa viridicola Emerton, in tlie kitchen 

 of hi.s residence in tliis city. He raised it up and was bitten on the 

 terminal joint of his thumb. The sensation was like the prick of a fine 

 needle, and a minute red spot was produced. A mild lancinating pain 

 was felt in the thumb and in all of the fingers of the same hand for the 

 rest of the day and passed away at night. The bite occasioned no fur- 

 ther inconvenience, although the red spot could be observed for several 

 days. 



In this case, then, we have the spider caught in the act of biting and 

 scientifically determined and the effects of the bite carefully noted. 

 Similar cases are very rare, but it is only upon such that we ever have 

 any positive and scientific statement as to the effects of spider bites. 



Mr. Edwin A. Hill, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was kind enough to send us 

 in November a clipping from a Cincinnati paper with the sensational 

 heading: Spider stung. ^'- Mrs. Medora Estes dying in great agony. She 

 was bitten on the hand by one of the household pests. The poison has ex- 

 ■tended to every part of her system. Sad plight of the well-hnouni teacher 

 of elocution.^'' The article went on to give an account of the case, and 

 the statement was made that " * * * last evening it was not thought 

 that Mrs. Estes could survive the night. The poison has worked its 

 way to every part of the body and in several places broken out in fear- 

 ful ulcers, causing the lady untold agony." Mr. Hill was kind enough 

 to send us also the address of the attending physician. Dr. F. H. 

 Schell, and we immediately wrote to him for the details of this striking 

 case. Under date of November 30 he wrote us as follows : 



There was nothing in the case of so-called spider bite! The newspaper account 

 was a case of extraordinary exaggeration and misinformation. A spider, however, 

 did bite or sting my little daughter upon the eyelid last summer, the only result of 

 which was a slight tumefaction, whicli subsided in a couple of days. 



INSECT EMBRYOLOGY. 



Under the title " Lehrbuch der vergleicheriden EntwicTclungsgeschichte 

 der wirbellosen Thiere,^^ Drs. Korshelt and Heider are issuing a compre- 

 hensive work, of which the second i)art, just published, contains the 

 embryology of the Arthropoda. The portion containing the embryology 

 of insects, profusely illustrated (pp. 759-890), is well deserving of a care- 

 ful perusal by even the best- read entomologists, since we find in this 

 portion a long-felt need, i. e., an impartial review and comparison of all 

 the works on insect embryology up to date. Heretofore we have been 

 obliged to rely on Balfour or hunt up the original articles, but Balfour's 

 text-book is now far behind the times, and the articles published since 

 then are very scattered. In the new text-book, however, we find every- 

 thing in a nutshell. It is impossible to give a complete review of the 

 work in this i3lace. Suffice it to say that the work of Heider, Graber, 

 Hejnuons, Metschnikoff, Wheeler, and many other embryologists finds 

 in this text-book a logical arrangement which renders the treatise the 

 best thing of its kind in existence. — C. W. Stiles. 



