29 



is remarkable also for sucking the blood of mammals, particularly of 

 children. I have knowu its bite followed by very serious consequences, 

 the patient not recovering from its effects for nearly a year. The many 

 relations which we have of spider bites irequentty proving fatal have 

 no doubt arisen from the stings of these insects or others of the same 

 genera. When the disease called spider bite is not an anthrax or car- 

 buncle, it is undoubtedly occasioned by the bite of an insect, by no 

 means, however, of a spider. Among the many species of Araneida3 

 which we have in the United States, I have never seen one capable of 

 inflicting the slightest wound. Ignorant persons may easily mistake a 

 Cimex for a spider. I have known a physician who sent to me the 

 fragments of a large ant, which he supposed was a spider, that came 

 out of his grand- 

 child's head." The 

 fact that LeOonte 

 was himself a physi- 

 cian, having gradu- 

 ated from the Col- 

 lege of Physicians 

 and Surgeons in 

 1846, thus having 

 been nine jesirs a 

 doctor of medicine, 

 renders this state- 

 ment all the more 

 significant. The life 

 history and habits 

 of C. sanguisuga 

 have been so well 

 written up by Mr. 

 Marlatt, in Bulletin 

 No. 4, New Series, 

 of this Division, that 

 it is not neces- 

 sary to enter upon them here. The point made by Marlatt that the 

 constant and uniform character of the symptoms in nearly all cases of 

 bites by this insect indicate that there is a specific poison connected 

 with the bite deserves consideration, but there can be no doubt that 

 the very serious results which sometimes follow the bite are due to the 

 introduction of extraneous poison germs. The late Mr. J. B. Lembert, 

 of Yosemite, Cal., noticed particularly that the species of Conorhinus, 

 occurring upon the Pacific coast, is attracted by carrion. Professor 

 Tourney, of Tucson, Ariz., shows how a woman broke out all over the 

 body and limbs with red blotches and welts from a single sting on the 

 shoulder. Specimens of C. sanguisuga received in July, 1809, from 

 Mayersville, Miss., were accompanied by the statement, which is appro- 

 priate in view of the fact that the newspapers have insisted that the 



Fig. 23.— Conorhinus sanguisuga: a, larva, second stage; b, newly 

 hatched larva; c, egg with sculpturing of surface shown at side — all 

 enlarged to same scale (from Marlatt). 



