20 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [January, 



Mistaken for a crank (a Yale professor's kindly treatment by the 

 Indians who killed Custer). — " One very peculiar characteristic of the In- 

 dian," said Major Barbour, a former plainsman now metamorphosed into 

 a clubman and raconteur, "is his reverence, amounting to absolue fear in 

 many instances, of an insane person. They never harm one whom they 

 believe to be mentally afflicted. I remember one striking instance which 

 will illustrate. I was a member of the expedition headed by Gen. Cus- 

 ter that made a tour through the Yellowstone Valley and that section of 

 the country the year before the Custer. massacre. It was put on foot in 

 the interest of science, and we had a lot of fellows from the Smithsonian 

 Institute and about a dozen Yale professors. It was a big party, com- 

 prising two or three companies of cavalry, one of infantry and some artil- 

 lery, so the Sioux, who at that time simply swarmed over that country, 

 were afraid to tackle us ; but they hung around us all the time, and Gen. 

 Custer gave orders, after two nien who were hunting had been killed, 

 that no one should leave ramp without permission. Those Yale profes- 

 sors just worried the life out of the soldiers. Every professor had a detail 

 of five men who had to watch him. They would go around picking up 

 bugs and chasing butterflies all over the prairie, and would break up rocks 

 and pow-wow over them with magnifying glasses until the soldiers swore 

 that every man of them was a howling idiot. One day the worst old fel- 

 low in the crowd, who wore two pairs of glasses, one red and one green, 

 managed in some way or other to get out of the sight of his detail and 

 wandered two or three miles away. He ran plump into a gang of Sioux. 

 He walked up to them and offered to shake hands. They grabbed him, 

 and the first thing they did was to dive down into a big green baize bag 

 he carried. They pulled out lizards and pieces of clay and bits of rock 

 and bugs and the worst assortment of truck imaginable. Just about this 

 time the old professor caught sight of a peculiar-looking bug. He caught 

 it, pulled out his glass, and began to study it. That settled it. An Indian 

 took him by the hand, led him to a hill close by, and, pointing to the army 

 below, said ' Go.' He came back and said that the soldiers totally mis- 

 understood the Indians. ' Why, I found them the most polite and court- 

 eous of people,' said he to Gen. Custer. But an old chief afterwards told 

 me that they wouldn't have him stay in that country for anything on 

 earth . " — IVashington Post. 



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