it, leaves the body of the insect, and lays its eggs, fastened together in long strings, in water.  From each egg a little creature armed with minute hooks is produced, and this young hair-worm burrows its way into the body of some insect, there to repeat the history of its parent.  Such is the well-ascertained history of the hair-worm, excluding entirely the popular belief in its origin.  There certainly does exist in science a theory known as that of “spontaneous generation,” which, in ancient times, accounted for the production of insects and other animals by assuming that they were produced in some mysterious fashion out of lifeless matter.  But not even the most ardent believer in the extreme modification of this theory which holds a place in modern scientific belief, would venture to maintain the production of a hair-worm by the mysterious vivification of an inert substance such as a horse’s hair.

The expression “crocodile’s tears” has passed into common use, and it therefore may be worth while noting the probable origin of this myth.  Shakespeare, with that wide extent of knowledge which enabled him to draw similes from every department of human thought, says that

                          “Gloster’s show
  Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile
  With sorrow snares relenting passengers.”

The poet thus indicates the belief that not only do crocodiles shed tears, but that sympathizing passengers, turning to commiserate the reptile’s woes, are seized and destroyed by the treacherous creatures.  That quaint and credulous old author—­the earliest writer of English prose—­Sir John Mandeville, in his “Voiage,” or account of his “Travile,” published about 1356—­in which, by the way, there are to be found accounts of not a few wonderful things in the way of zooelogical curiosities—­tells us that in a certain “contre and be all yonde, ben great plenty of Crokodilles, that is, a manner of a long Serpent as I have seyed before.”  He further remarks that “these Serpents slew men,” and devoured them, weeping; and he tells us, too, that “whan thei eaten thei meven (move) the over jowe (upper jaw), and nought the nether (lower) jowe:  and thei have no tonge (tongue).”  Sir John thus states two popular beliefs of his time and of days prior to his age, namely, that crocodiles move their upper jaws, and that a tongue was absent in these animals.

[Illustration:  CROCODILE.]

As regards the tears of the crocodile, no foundation of fact exists for the belief in such sympathetic exhibitions.  But a highly probable explanation may be given of the manner in which such a belief originated.  These reptiles unquestionably emit very loud and singularly plaintive cries, compared by some travellers to the mournful howling of dogs.  The earlier and credulous travellers would very naturally associate tears with these cries, and, once begun, the supposition would be readily propagated, for error and myth are ever plants of quick growth.  The