THE CANTON ADVOCATE — SEPTEMBER 08, 1881
A TERRIBLE INSECT ♢ The Ice Worm and its Ravages—Why Servant Girls Should be Careful—Explanation of High Prices.
The ice dealers all over the country are threatened with ruin. The gaunt form of the wolf is at their door, and it is only at question of time how long they will be able to hold out against the ravages of a new-discovered insect which eats ice with as much facility and enjoyment as a boy does candy. This is startling on its face, and at once accounts for the high prices householders have been paying this summer for the congealed article, although it was a well-known fact that a rather fair crop was gathered last winter. The ice men have had a knowledge of the presence of this new enemy among them since April, 1878, when a steamer of the Red Star line happened to strike an iceberg in mid-ocean, and some of these newfangled worms or ice chewers, clung to it and were carried to this country, where they have rapidly multiplied.
A well-known scientist, Dr. Otto Hechelmeyer, says that these worms were clasified by scientific men under the name—the worms, not the men—of nematoxis eocena. When a worm with such a name as this gets after a block of ice, there is no hope for it, of course. Prof Pintori, of the Smithsonian institution, has been looking into the history of this terrible worm, and he has discovered that it is the caterpillar of an insect which he calls the vespa eocena, but which he allows plain, unlearned people to call the ice
