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men of a large brown spider, Lycosa viridicola Emerton, in the kitchen ~ 
of his residence in this city. He raised it up and was bitten on the 
terminal joint of his thumb. The sensation was like the prick of a fine 
needle, and a minute red spot was produced. <A mild lancinating pain 
was felt in the thumb and in all of the fingers of the same hand for the 
rest of the day and passed away at night. The bite occasioned no fur- 
ther inconvenience, although the red spot could be observed for several 
days. 
In this case, then, we have the spider caught in the act of biting and 
scientifically determined and the effects of the bite carefully noted. 
Similar cases are very rare, but it is only upon such that we ever have 
any positive and scientific statement as to the effects of spider bites. 
Mr. Edwin A. Hill, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was kind enough to send us 
in November a clipping from a Cincinnati paper with the sensational 
heading: Spider stung. ‘Mrs. Medora Estes dying in great agony. She 
was bitten on the hand by one of the household pests. The poison has ex- 
tended to every part of her system. Sad plight of the well-known teacher 
of elocution.” The article went on to give an account of the case, and 
the statement was made that “* * * last evening it was not thought 
that Mrs. Estes could survive the night. The poison has worked its 
way to every part of the body and in several places broken out in fear- 
ful ulcers, causing the lady untold agony.” Mr. Hill was kind enough 
to send us also the address of the attending physician, Dr. F. H. 
Schell, and we immediately wrote to him for the details of this striking 
case. Under date of November 30 he wrote us as follows: 
There was nothing in the case of so-called spider bite! The newspaper account 
was a case of extraordinary exaggeration and misinformation. A spider, however, 
did bite or sting my little daughter upon the eyelid last summer, the only result of 
which was a slight tumefaction, which subsided in a couple of days. 
INSECT EMBRYOLOGY. 
Under the title ‘“‘ Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Entwicklungsgeschichte 
der wirbellosen There,” Drs. Korshelt and Heider are issuing a compre- 
hensive work, of which the second part, just published, contains the 
embryology of the Arthropoda. The portion containing the embryology 
of insects, profusely illustrated (pp. 759-890), is well deserving of a care- 
ful perusal by even the best-read entomologists, since we find in this 
portion a long-felt need, 7. e., an impartial review and comparison of all 
the works on insect embryology up to date. Heretofore we have been 
obliged to rely on Balfour or hunt up the original articles, but Balfour’s 
text-book is now far behind the times, and the articles published since 
then are very scattered. In the new text-book, however, we find every- 
thing in a nutshell. It is impossible to give a complete review of the 
work in this place. Suffice it to say that the work of Heider, Graber, 
Heymons, Metschnikoff, Wheeler, and many other embryologists finds 
in this text-book a logical arrangement which renders the treatise the 
best thing of its kind in existence.—C. W. STILES. 
