INHERITED ANTIPATHY TO SNAKES. 103 



the twigs of a shrubby red-haw, is the half 

 grown young of a great stink-bug. To the Or- 

 thoptera belong those grasshoppers, not yet ma- 

 ture, which are nibbling the stems of the juicy 

 blue-grass by my side, while the Hymenoptera 

 are represented by a buzzing bumble-bee and a 

 number of small reddish ichneumon flies which 

 flit quickly from leaf to leaf in search of some 

 host in which they may inject their eggs. Thus 

 on every acre of the old pasture do myriads of 

 insects pass the heyday of their existence in the 

 genial sunshine of these June days. 



To-day I dined at the old home place for 

 the larder at camp was not full enough to fur- 

 nish a good Sunday dinner for a hungry nat- 

 uralist. Returning at three o'clock I arrived 

 just in time to see a half dozen town boys on 

 their way home from the old swimming hole 

 stop and survey my tent. It was a new home 

 which, like a mushroom, had sprung up in the 

 woods since they went by a week ago. They 

 stopped at the spring and while drinking one 

 of them espied a water snake basking on a rock. 

 Hitting it time and again with stones, on they 

 went leaving its head crushed to a jelly. Thus 

 was a harmless and useful life blotted out in 

 deference to the man of old who, naked and un- 

 armed, dwelt in the wilderness affrightened at 

 every creeping and crawling thing about him. 

 Down through the ages has come this spirit of 



