THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



11 



TOMATO-WORMS NOT POISONOUS. 



For some unaccountable cause there arc cer- 

 tain of God's creatures, that everybody seems to 

 take a pleasure in vilifying and slandering, 

 while on the other hand there are others that 

 arc almost worshiped in the popular mind. 

 For instance, Toads and Snakes are considered 

 by most persons .as all of them equally poison- 

 ous and dangerous ; whereas in reality the num- 

 ber of venomous snakes to be found in the 

 United States may be counted on the fingers of 

 one hand; and as to Toads, they may be freely 

 handled with the most perfect impunity, and 

 they prove themselves to be one of the very best 

 friends to the gardener and the larmer by prey- 

 ing to a great extent upon noxious insects. On 

 the other hand our small birds are considered 

 by many as a kind of Sacred Animal, that it 

 would be as impious for us to shoot when they 

 are destroying our grapes and our cherries, as 

 it would be for a Hindoo to drive away the 

 holy Brachman Bull when that Bull is devour- 

 ing his rice-crop before his very eyes. Among 

 our insect friends, however, we tind but very 

 few that are popular favorites, the only instance 

 that occurs to us at present being that of the 

 Lady-birds (Coccinella family), which arc the 

 childreu's pets all over Europe, and are known 

 in France as "the Virgin's Cattle," and " God's 

 Cows." With this exception, perhaps, all other 

 insects are commonly devoted to destruction as 

 ugly and hateful abominations, which it is dan- 

 gerous to touch and ridiculous to admire. More 

 especially are the diflereut kinds of Caterpillars, 

 or " worms'' as they are often called, which are 

 the larva; of our multifarious species of Butter- 

 flies and Moths, objects of the most unmiti- 

 gated disgust. And perhaps of all these none 

 is in worse repute than the common Tomato- 

 worm. 



This larva belongs to an extensive group (the 

 Sphinx Family), almost all of which have a stiff 

 pointed horn growing out of their tails — a 

 merely ornamental appendage, such as those 

 which are distributed in considerable numbers 

 over the body of the magnificent larva, which 

 we illustrated in the Frontispiece to our iirst 

 volume. Why or wherefore it is impossible to 

 say, but this poor unfortunate Tomato-worm 

 has beeu selected by the popular voice, out of 

 about fifty others belonging to the same Family 

 and found within the limits of the United States 

 — all of which have a similar horn growing out 

 of their tails — to be falsely accused of using this 

 horn as a sting. The Tomato-worm and the 



Tobacco-worm are as like as two peas, arnd pro- 

 duce moths which resemble each other so closely, 

 that entomologists for a long time confounded 

 them together. Each has exactly the same kind 

 of horn growing on the hinder extremity of its 

 body; yet while the Tomato-worm is generally 

 accused of stinging folks with this horn, nobody, 

 so far as we are aware, ever j-et said that the 

 Tobacco-worm would or could do so. The real 

 truth of the matter is that neither of them can 

 sting, either with its tail, or with its head, or 

 with any part of its body. Yet not a season 

 elapses but the newspapers publish horrible 

 accounts of people being stung to death by To- 

 mato-worms, and earnestly reconnncnd those 

 that gather tomatoes to wear heavy buckskin 

 gloves. These stories, however, have been con- 

 tradicted so flatly and so often, that latterly 

 the penny-a-liners have struck off upon another 

 tack. Tomato-worms, it appears, do not sting 

 with the horn that grows on their tails, but they 

 "eject with great violence a green caustic fluid 

 from their mouths to a distance of from three 

 to fifteen inches" ! 1 Now what is the real truth 

 about this matter? Tomato-worms do really 

 discharge from their mouths, when roughly 

 handled, a greenish fluid, and so do (he larvse 

 of almost all moths, and so does every species of 

 grasshopper with which we are acquainted, and 

 so do many different kinds of beetles. But it 

 is not true that they can spit out this fluid even 

 to the distance of a quarter of ah inch, much 

 less to the distance of fifteen or even of three 

 inches ; and especially it is not true that the 

 fluid is poisonous. If it were so, we thould 

 have been in our graves long ago ; for we have 

 had it repeatedly daubed over our fingers, but 

 without the least ill effects therefrom, and so 

 have scores of other entomologists in this coun- 

 try. The strangest thing of all is, that of two 

 worms almost exactly alike, one of which eats 

 tomato leaves, and the other eats tobacco leaves, 

 the tomato-chewcr should be accused of spitting, 

 and the tobacco-chewer should be held to be 

 guiltless of this ofl'ensive practice. 



Now then. Gentlemen of the Public Press, if 

 Tomato-worms neither sting nor spit, what is 

 the next charge that you are going to bring 

 against them? Why not assert that they can 

 leap a distance of from ten to twenty feet, hav- 

 ing taken deadly aim at the human eyes, which 

 they forthwith proceed to gouge out with their 

 rough rasp-like pro-legs? Of course you would 

 follow this up by recommending everybody 

 never to go near a tomato patch, without a large 

 pair of green goggles to protect the eyes from 

 being destroyed. 



