Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-10-02
DENOMINATIONS
HOW SCIENCE HAS RUTHLESsLY
 PLAYED HOB WITH THEM.

l OClCuC0 IJlc lOu "ltu IuG ITaU1- 1 tions of rural schoolboy days. How many ugly but useful toads have been left in undisturbed possession of a gar i den bed because to handle them was but to cover your hands with warts and to kill them would force your cows to let down bloody milk? What boy would have crushed a cricket, assured as he was that its mate would come at night and avenge it's death by eating up that rash boys clothes? What man lives to- day who, as a rustic lad, has not held the stilted daddy-long-legs prisoner by one hairlike shank and informed the globular insect that unless it forthwith pointed out the way ill which the lost COWS had gone instant death awaited it, and when did daddy-long- legs fail to raise one slender leg and in dicate, according to boyish belief, the direction the straying kline had gone? And the devils alarming needle, that big eyed thing that lived and prowled for nothing else than to sew your ears up, and the magic eel skin tied round your leg, or neck, or arm, to keep the cramps away when you went in swimming, and the snake that swallowed its young, and greatest of all, that vivified hair from a horses tail, wriggling and gyrating in the roadside mud puddle, the horsehair snake
 But science has stepped ill and solemn ly and seriously said that these are all myths. It is a shattering of idols, but fear that to science must be granted all it denies about them, except as to snakes swallowing their young. I have been an open mouthed and wide eyed witness of that interesting trick too often to let even profound scientists stand up and declare that it isn't so.
 l hold out little, too, for the horse hair snake. for have in my mind cer- tain vagrant horsehair that I once put in an oyster keg filled with rainwater, and either that horsehair in the course of few weeks took on the semblance of life and form of a horsehair snake and kept it up all season in bottle to which 1 transferred it, or else it disappeared, and the germ of what we supposed was a horsehair snake happened to be in the water and developed there have al- ways insisted that l made horsehair snake. l have heard many veracious persons declare that they have done the same thing
 But you are all wrong" says Nich- Olas Pike, the naturalist. "The horsehair snake, or hairworm, is the Gordius aquaticus, and it is common in most fresh water ponds and rivulets. Though no larger around than a coarse cotton thread, they have two mouths, one on each side of the head. They lay scores and sometimes thousands of eggs. The eggs are deposited in strings, like chain. on the sides of shallow ponds or creeks, and they are greedily swallowed by various aquatic insects. Then from the time the egg is matched the first part of the worms nutriment is spent as a parasite, absorbing nutriment from the body of its unlucky host The large water beetles are subject to these para sites. They have been found in a crick- ct. They are graceful swimmers, but when taken from the water they twist themselves into such an intricate knot that it is almost impossible to unloose it. They are called Gordius from this, the Gordian knot.
 T have no doubt that one reason why the idea of the horsehair snake has been propagated is from ignorant persons who have had various insects in clear "tllCl "hlOlllL9 blISAIl TUT SluOS UT osity Knowing that they put in only certain live creatures. and some day finding these live worms, they were as torished. The chances are that the worms Wee developed from Q pet beetle that in its native pond made feast on some ova of the Gordius, to be paid dearly for later when these matched"
 But there was no pet beetle or any other insect in my leg of rainwater. The Eorsehair went away, and the snake or worm appeared. ! don't believe the horseAair ever swallowed any Gordius ova. cant imagine any reason why horsehair should turn into q snake or wo-l2 when keI% in the water, but why not horse'S hair as well as a cows hair CT . deer's .12ir? Science had better not tell any Of tie few old settlers of north ern Pennsylvania or any other locality where the pioneers were frequently their own tanners that cows hair and deer's hair will not turn into worms under cer- tain conditions or science will get a black eye. In the pioneer days, when settler wanted leather for boots or shoes. it was not an uncommon thing for him to make vat by following out pine
 
 in removing the hair. When the hide was taken out of the vat it would be placed in creek to soak out the alkali.
 have more than once heard the sons of such pioneers tell of finding curious worms swimming about these hides where they were lying in quiet pools. These worms were about two inches long, somewhat thicker than a cows hair, and always in various stages of de velopment from the hair as it came off the hide, some being for part of their length simply hair, while the rest was the living worm, white and semitrans- parent. Some would be still fast to the hide. but wiggling to get loose, when they would swim about with hair for tail. These worms were never seen ex- cept in the pools with the hides, either COW or deer. The more I think of these well authenticated COW hair worms the more I am inclined to defy science and hold out for the horsehair worm.-New York Snn.
 Letters of introduction.
 In writing letter of introduction care should be taken that no requests are made that will involve the recipient in any trouble. Remember that social at tentions are not always easy to render. and therefore the letter should entail only minor courtesies not apt to put any one to any inconvenience.-Phila Times.
 Among the train robbers engaged in the affair in Michigan were a railway fireman, brakeman, an express mes senger and q baggage master. How does that look for the general body of railway