State Agricultural Society. 
927 
WORM IS HOT POISONOUS. 
rior end equal or the inner one slightly longer than the outer, receiving two recur¬ 
rent veins, the hind one but little forward of the hind end, and having a brown 
dot back of the centre and slightly nearer the inner than the outer bouudary; the 
third cell is small, quadrangular and twice as long as broad, usually widening 
backward, joined by no recurrent vcinlet; the fqurth cell as long as the second 
and double its width, its hind end twice or thrice the width of its anterior end, 
sometimes incomplete, the vein on its inner side being more or less atrophied. The 
legs arc dull white, the hind pair having the feet and tips of the shanks black. 
Several of the parts which are black in the living insect fade to brown in preserved 
specimens. 
In many neighborhoods it is a mooted subject whether the fruit 
which ripens on bushes which have been thronged by these worms 
is not poisonous and unsafe to bo gathered and used. Rumor is 
ever ready to report that in the next town one or two children 
have died from eating these currants. Meeting a man who desired 
to know my opinion upon this subject, I was told ho had heard a 
strenuous advocate of this poison theory, relating in a public place 
that he had my authority for saying that such currants were 
poisoned and ought never to be used. This illustrates how unscru¬ 
pulous men are apt to become when excited by controversy. Those 
who are so prejudiced against using these currants ought never to 
taste a worm-eaten apple, for assuredly a worm crawling around 
inside of a fruit and feeding upon it will be much more apt to 
impart poison to it than one which merely walks over or rubs 
against its smooth outer surface. When the bushes are stripped 
bare of their leaves, the fruit which ripens on them will not be so 
plump and perfect, it will be slightly wilted and shrunken, and 
possibly such fruit may not be quite so healthy as that which is 
perfectly grown—though an apple which is slightly wilted from 
being worm-eaten is more palatable and also more digestible than 
one which is fresh and sound. But that such currants are “ poison¬ 
ous,” in any sense of the term, I am confident is erroneous. I 
bind upon the skin of my arm a worm which has just now been 
killed by hellebore. At the end of six hours I have not felt the 
slightest smarting or irritation of the part; and on removing the 
worm the skin is not at all reddened, as it would be were there 
any acrid or vesicatory property pertaining to this larva as there 
is to several other insects and their larva}. And we have no evi¬ 
dence that any poisonous quality whatever, pertains to these worms. 
A most important topic is yet remaining to complete our account 
of this terrible pest to the gardener, namely, a notice of the most 
