The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-07-23
BUGS NOT WORRIED
Their Mortuary Tables Don't Show
: Decreasing Longevity, Says
Prof. F. L. Washburn.
Grasshopper Fungi, Mosquito Para
sites and New Kissing Bugs
Chiefly Heroes of Fiction.

False ruInors about insect novelties are
beguiling the civilized world, declares
Professor f. L. Washburn, state ento-
mologist. There is nothing new, said
he yesterday, in bugs and worms, except
new bugs, new worms, of the same old
sorts. Insects constitute already four
fifths of all the living creatures on this
earth, and the next directory, using the
customary multiple, will display crafty
ing increase in the population.
There is happily no truth, insists Pro-
lessor Washburn, with thankful counten-
ance, in the report that mosquitoes are
being carried to premat ure graves; friends
of the grasshopper may be reassured-he
is not doomed to an untimely death. It's
wholly false, as well, that insects are
blighting the Canada thistle in its prime.
Professor Washburn is pleased to be
able to contradict several recent SANDERS
of the bug world. 1t is not true, for ex-
ample, that DR.. L. O. Howard, chief of the
division of entomology in the department
of agriculture, is sending out from Wash
ington a South African fungus that fast
ems upon grasshoppers and reduces whole
communities of the CHEEKY chrper to las
situde and death. Experin were
made with this fungus. But the Ameri-
can hopper developed such constitutional
robustness that he seldom manifested
symptoms more alarming than a slight
cough and feeling of malice.
It is equally false that any state
entomologist, after training numerous ca
terpillars to sit quietly for their portraits
In oils for the annual report, has also
| trained one specimen to become a food
faddist, and to make an exclusive break
| fast food of Canada thistle. Il know Of
no such worm, caterpillar, bug, fly or
| other insect" says Professor Washburn
|reassuringly, land 7 don't believe there Is
! one" =. -....-
+ The cruel attempts to murder mosquitoes
at, st. Anthony Park have also been dis
continued. Kerosene is not being scat
tered this year upon the pools and marshes
| of the Park. Such methods, indeed, do
| wreck the lives Of many fine. young mos
quitos, but tiny pools of water are always
| overlooked and insects by the hundred
thousands thus escape. -.
AS for the poisonous parasite, or mite,
| of which some mosquitoes have recently
complained, the newspapers are again
| exaggerating. Bugs, of course, have lit
tie bugs to bite 'em, but" according to
Professor Washburn, the mosquito mite
does not destroy the mosquito. The mite
simply makes him nervous and pugna-
cious, whets his bill, SO to speak.
''Then there. was local story of a
Edragon fly that was said to be .stinging
trees How absurd Why should fly
sting trees, that can't feel or suffer- No
fly so foolish could get in my collection
and I have here 163,4 92 flies, bugs and
worms --..
"As for that latest kissing bug re-
| ported from Washington, the bug that DR..
Howard is supposed to be investigating.
the black bug that can't fly, that hops like
a flea, and that makes a mans arm stiff
with single bite'-that's nothing but ro-
| nance. There's only one Kissing bug in
the United States. He's described in this
government brochure with colored plates,
When a Bug Is Not Bug He's a little
fellow one-quarter as long as his name,
which Is 'opsicoetus personatus.'~ He be-
longs to the insect 400 and lives only in
Europe and on the Atlantic coast. He
doesn't make you stiff; he only makes you
| swear" .<.-