708)  —__-—sENTOMOLOGICAL News. 467 
rt Fallacies Regarding Insects; and some 
Insects that are Poisonous. 
By W. R. Watton, Harrisburg, Pa. 
a the paper which I shall present for your consideration 
Ras vats cf eataueay 7 clr OE 
ai without the pale of entomology. I refer to the hair 
m, but as the economic entomologist is often called upon to 
ans | regarding this and other forms not included 
in the Insecta we think it quite proper that some of them 
_ be mentioned in the present paper. 
_ When the speaker was a boy some ten years of age, his 
family moved from a large city in the middle west, to a 
_ farm in the southeastern corner of New York State. 
2 He had never been in the country before and the book of 
Mature now opened to him for the first time became a source of 
wonder and delight. But this delight was'not unmixed with 
dread because of the tales which were told, of this insect or 
that reptile, whose bite was instant death, or whose diabolical 
Lc ty enabled it to sew up one’s ears or perform other 
theard of and monstrous deeds of aggression. And from the 
t that many of these wonderful stories, emanatéd from 
in whom he had the utmost confidence, they became 
SE tit for 2 time But as months passed 
_ Om and neither he nor his companions were attacked by the 
f whom the terrible tales were told, he began to 
(being nothing if not curious), at last to experi- 
them. The results of the experiments tended to 
upset all of his lately acquired lore, but this gave him great 
__ prestige in the eyes of his companions, who, still believing 
in the old yarns, looked on with awe as he juggled garter 
‘snakes, or wooden horses (Phasmidae), or held devil's darn- 
ing needles by their wings while they champed their jaws in 
fury 
a 
s 
: 
sew up his fingers. 
_ One of the most wonderful of the tales current among the 
country folk of that region and one which I believe to be very” 
and curled their venomous tails in fruitless efforts to 
