"AN OBJECT OF TERROR" Identifier: littlefolksinfea00mill (
find matches)Title:
Little folks in feathers and fur, and others in neitherYear:
1875 (
1870s)Authors:
(Miller, Harriet (Mann) Mrs.), 1831- (from old catalog)Subjects:
ZoologyPublisher:
Hartford, Conn., Dustin, Gilman & co. Cincinnati, Ohio, Queen city publishing co. (etc., etc.)Contributing Library:
The Library of CongressDigitizing Sponsor:
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view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.Text Appearing Before Image:222 LITTLE FOLKS yellowish mud, with large sharp, curved jaws. These jaws werehollow, so that when he had seized his prey with them, he couldsuck up their juices through them. When this ferocious fellow got his growth, he crawled out ofthe water and made a hole in the ground, where he stayed till hecame out a perfect Beetle. The Dyticus lives in the water of ponds and rivers, but atnight he takes to his wings and flies about in the air. When hecomes back to the water, he has a curious habit of closing hiswings and dropping into the water, but this habit sometimes getshim into trouble, for he has been known to mistake glass for water,and so come bump on to the top of a greenhouse, which must haveastonished him very much. IN FEATHERS AND FUR. 223Text Appearing After Image:AN OBJECT OF TERROR. Yes, this Moth—innocent and harmless as he looks, and as heis, too — has long been an object of terror to the ignorant, merelybecause of the curious marks he has on his back. These marks looklike a skull with the crossed bones under it, and the innocent Moth isregarded as the messenger of pestilence or trouble of some sort, and ithas thrown a whole country into consternation. Some people haveeven believed it was a witch, and that it had the terrible habit ofwhispering into the ear of human witches the name of any personwho was going to die. All this is, of course, perfectly absurd. The Moth is far moreharmless than the beetles I have been telling you about, and though 224 LITTLE FOLKS he can make a noise when caught—which is unusual for Moths —that proves nothing against him. Mr. Wood tells an amusing story about seeing one of thesepoor little creatures near a village church. The people were gath-ering around, and no one dared to come near it, till the blaNote About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.