A RUSTIC SUPERSTITION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1 SIR,—The rustic superstition, mentioned by your corre- spondent, that horse-hairs accidentally dropped into the water will in due course of time become endowed with life, appears to be spread over the whole of Europe, and if my memory -does not mislead me, it will be found in Pliny's "Natural History." A threadlike worm of the family Gordiacew, some- times seen in stagnant pools, is the sole foundation of this belief.
I recollect conversing with a German emigrant in the United States, who told me that he had long doubted the fact, until, like the informant of your correspondent, he had himself verified it by experiment. He had kept some horse-hairs in a bottle of water, before he had left Germany, until they became alive. I could only listen to his statement with respectful attention. I have no doubt that if the bottle be shaken, the horse-hairs will move ; and if you have faith and your mind has not been narrowed by scientific training, the experiment will be successful and convincing.
In the Pyrenees, near Eaux Bonnes, I once talked with an old peasant, who informed me that horse-hairs, when they fell into the water, turned into worms, and also that the bite of tadpoles, which he found me imprudently watching, was -dangerous, if not mortal.
I have seen in the country-house of a German lady some horse-hairs which she kept in a bottle of water to watch their quickening, but I could not prolong my visit until her experi- ments had been crowned with success. An English friend of mine told me that he had seen some of these wonderful worms wriggling in a trough in Russia, and that he had been told by the natives that they were originally hairs dropped from the manes of horses led to drink there. I ventured to express some doubts, but my friend, who had received a sound classical education, silenced me at once by saying that he preferred facts to all the most plausible theories of scientific men, and that he had rather trust the observations of those who lived in daily contact with Nature than the opinions of Professors who sat in museums writing books.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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