And now as to the food question. This, of course, was a very vital matter to my little prisoner, and one of great interest to me. After the failure of the cockroach diet, I next tried grasshoppers. These also have been declared to be greatly relished by the Thelyphonus. I did not find it so. The first one placed in the cage was, to be sure, partially eaten. But, unfortunately, a colony of ants had got into the cage, and were dining on my dead Gryllus. This left the matter a little uncertain. On fencing out these intruders, and repeating the experiment with the same and half a dozen other species, I became convinced that my Thelyphonus, at least, was not fond of grasshoppers. Then began a kind of general system, or no system, of haphazard feeding, or rather trials of food. My marketing range for my particular "boarder" was by no means a limited one. During the month of September, when most of these investigations were in progress, Florida is by no means deficient in insect life. Every day from two to ten new and different species were placed in the cage. A list was kept, to avoid repetition, until my captive was offered her choice of something over a hundred varieties of "bugs," worms, grubs, spiders, ants and their eggs, lizards, butterflies, etc.—everything, indeed, that I could think of or conveniently catch, which it seemed possible my little captive might fancy. Of all this heterogeneous collection, nothing, so far as I could see, was ever killed or eaten. A tiny piece of fresh beef, placed in her cage at night, was the only thing that I could persuade her to touch. Even of this I am not absolutely certain. In the morning these little pellets of fresh meat were usually found rolled in the sand and often apparently diminished in size. Several times they disappeared altogether. The presence, however, of other predatory insects sometimes left the matter a little in doubt. But, as my captive remained in good health for over a month while this plan of trial dieting was in progress, I am inclined to think that more or less of the fresh beef was really consumed by her. Still, she took the greatest care that I should never catch her eating, even when surprised with a sudden light at night, a time when she was always especially active.
I was getting a little tired of this seemingly fruitless investigation, and had about concluded to persuade my Thelyphonus to crawl into a bottle in company with a few drops of chloroform, to have her picture taken, and then forward the "embalmed remains" to the Museum of Natural History in Central Park, New York, to which they had already been promised.
I concluded, however, to make one more effort. So the next day I spent some time in hunting for new and untried insects, of which I procured half a dozen or so, and among other things quite a lot of so-called "wood-lice," "white ants," termites, our only representative of a family that in most warm countries is so destructive to exposed wooden structures. All of these "finds" were tumbled, as usual, upon the floor of my captive's cage, and I left them with very little expectation that she would see among them anything that suited her fastidious taste. The next morning, to my surprise, every white ant had disappeared; nothing else was touched. The question was solved. For about three weeks my Thelyphonus was supplied each day with a liberal allowance of what in this latitude, at least, seems to be its exclusive food.
Now, this white ant (Termes flavipes) is in Florida one of our worst pests. Possibly there may be some compensating benefits which they confer, in the more rapid removal of decaying vegetable matter. In most respects, however, they are an unmitigated nuisance. The annual destruction of property, of fencing, building foundations, and exposed woodwork of every kind must be estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars. The worst of it is, too, that it is impossible to know when they are at work. They are always hidden. In case they are compelled in their destructive labors to pass over the outside of anything, they always build a hard gallery of cemented sand or clay, under which they travel securely. Unfortunately, too, they do not always confine their ravages to dead wood. Every orange grower fears them, and if they once get a foothold the tree that they attack is often destroyed before anything is suspected to be the matter. They "love darkness rather than light," and "their deeds are evil." And it is these miserable pests that my little-appreciated and much-slandered Thelyphonus has been all her life fighting! And those big, strong claws of hers, that look so formidable, what are they for but to tear down and break in pieces the hard, honeycombed structures in which her food is hidden? It was all plain enough now!
I confess, when I first discovered these facts which turn popular natural history so completely topsy-turvy, I felt like taking off my hat and making my profoundest bow to my little captive, and in the name of justice and humanity asking pardon for all the slanders and indignities heaped upon her race.
Since writing the above, a private note from Prof. L. O. Howard, chief of the Division of Entomology in the United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., furnishes important additional testimony upon the question of the harmlessness of this arachnid. Professor Howard says, "The Thelyphonus is not poisonous."
Perhaps a way of reconciling at least some of the conflicting statements that have been made on the subject may be found in the facts revealed by modern bacteriological investigations. It is well known that under special conditions the bite of the most harmless animal may convey to the human system pathogenic germs which will speedily prove fatal. Most of the deaths reported in the newspapers from the bite of the Thelyphonus are no doubt imaginary, or due entirely to other causes. Any well-authenticated case—if such there has been—is probably to be explained in the manner above indicated. This theory, too, helps to "let down easy" some prominent naturalists whose great names have served to give countenance to one of the most widespread and persistent errors in current natural history.
In a memorial address of the late Dr. James Hall, made at the recent meeting of the Geological Society of America, Secretary H. L. Fairchild referred to Dr. Hall's development as almost coeval with that of the science of geology in America, and his sixty-two years of activity as connecting the work of the self-taught pioneers in this branch with the widespread field of activity of to-day. Dr. Hall's accuracy and well-balanced observation had made his first work, a report on the Geology of Western New York, a classic of the science to-day.