108 On Accidentally Introduced Forms of Animals. 



are laid in the sand, as are those of the smaller allied forms gener- 

 ally , where they are hatched by the heat of sun, the same as 

 the eggs of the turtles. The alleged alligator was simply a harm- 

 less lizard. I have found these small reptiles in Havana sugar, 

 into which they had crawled, between the time of filling the. 

 boxes, in which this sugar is often packed, and the nailing on of 

 the covers. 



I remember of reading an item in a New York paper several 

 years ago which gave an account of an Italian fruit vendor hav 

 ing been bitten by a tarantula. He was in the act of cutting a 

 banana from a bunch on his stand when the insect, which was 

 evidently hidden on the stalk of the bunch, stung him on the 

 right thumb. 



The peculiar arrangement of the stems of the banana, radi- 

 ating in several series from a ceniral stalk, and the clusters of the 

 fruit being so compact, make an exceedingly favorable hiding 

 place for small animals. 



Not long ago the National Museum received a specimen of 

 the peculiar slug Veronicella, which had been found by the giver 

 in a bunch of bananas. 



In 1866 or 1867 I received several examples of two different 

 species of land shells belonging to the genera Bulimulus and Or- 

 thalicus, which were brought to San Francisco in a cargo of dye 

 woods from the Gulf of California. The dyewoods had been 

 hauled from the place where they were cut,, and piled up near 

 the embarcadero on the gulf shore, and afterward transferred to 

 the vessel. These snails had crawled into the hollows and crev- 

 ices of the wood, and were discovered when the cargo was un- 

 loaded and put on the wharf in San Francisco. When the sticks 

 were thrown ashore the rough handling shook out the snail shells; 

 many also were found in the hold of the vessel after the cargo 

 was discharged. Though I obtained several specimens none of 

 them were alive. 



It may be presumed with some basis of probability that 

 while in the majority of cases forms thus transported and intro- 

 duced fail to gain a foothold 'and multiply and replenish the 

 earth,' in these new regions, so far from their native haunts, 

 where different environmental conditions exist, etc., yet, some- 

 times, occasionally, it is otherwise, and the stranger becomes ac- 

 climatized and established. That this is not an infrequent result 

 in connection with the distribution of insect life, both in the ma- 

 ture and larval stages, is shown by the phenomenal appearance 

 of some insect whose pestiferous habits forces the knowledge of 

 its presence upon those who are damaged or annoyed by it, and 

 who- not only feel the habits or operations of the unwelcome 

 alien deeply in their pockets, but are also stirred to the utmost 

 limits of their wrath, by reason of their nearly fruitless efforts to 

 circumvent its ravages. 

 ; An investigation of the effects of the disturbance of what may 



