OP THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 125 



ones of our Katydids. The increase in bulk is most apparent a few 

 weeks before hatching, and in none is it so obvious as in those of c?^r- 

 mcatida, which swell very materially, whether the dead leaves con- 

 taining them have buffeted the winter's frosts and blasts, or been kept 

 in a dry room. It is about as difficult to conceive the source of the 

 matter causing this increase, as it is to understand the force which 

 causes the continued revolution of the globular frog's egg while sus- 

 pended in its gelatinous surroundings! 



STINGING LARViE. 



In the popular mind, nearly every creeping thing has the power 

 to bite or sting. Through sensational items, which at certain seasons 

 are the order of the day in many of our periodicals, the large Potato- 

 worm ( Sphinx h-maculata)^ and some of its congeners which, like it, 

 are ornamented with a horn near the tail, are looked upon with fear 

 and trembling, under the delusive idea that said horn possesses poi- 

 sonous and deadly stinging power. By the same false teaching most 

 worms have become a scare to children, and even haunt and trouble 

 " children of larger growth." So deeply have I known this supersti- 

 tion (for it can not be called anything else) to be rooted, that the 

 good people of a certain household allowed their tomatoes to be ut- 

 terly ruined rather than run the supposed risk of being mortally stung 

 by handling the horned destroyers. 



No .class of animals, and few, if any, creeping things, are less de- 

 serving of this wide-spread fear and horror than are the larvte of in- 

 sects. Of the many thousand varied and distinct species which inhabit 

 the United States, hardly more than two dozen have any power to 

 cause inconvenience, and not one to do serious harm to man. In a 

 few rare instances, the larvce of some Diptera have been found in the 

 human stomach, in the nostrils, or in flesh wounds ; and Kirby and 

 Spence mention, on other authority, that even Lepidopterous larvae 

 have been found in like situations ; but it may be stated as a broad 

 and very general rule, that insects in their larval state have no power 

 to do direct injury to man, however annoying they may be in the per- 

 fect state. The few exceptions to the rule will be found among the 

 Heteroptera and the Lepidoptera. It is of some of the latter which I 

 propose at present to speak. 



Many caterpillars will pinch a little with their jaws if they get a 

 chance, and a few (such, for instance, as that of Xylina cinerea^ 3d 

 Rep., Fig, 57, and that of Perojphora Melslieimerii) quite sharply, so 

 as to draw a little blood from a tender part ; but here there is nothing 

 poisonous in the bite, and the great majority will not bite at all. A 



