Charles Darwin – Humbug

Two English boys,being friends of Darwin, thought one day that they would play a joke on him. They caught a butterfly, a grasshopper, a beetle and a centipede, and out of the creatures they made a strange, composite insect. They took the centipede’s body, the butterfly’s wings, the grasshopper’s legs and the beetle’s head and they glued them together carefully. Then, with their new bug in a box, they knocked at Darwin’s door.

“We caught this bug in a field,” they said. “Can you tell us what kind of bug it is, sir?”

Darwin looked at the bug and then he looked at the boys. He smiled slightly.

“Did it hum when you caught it?” he asked.

“Yes,” they answered, nudging one another.

“Then,” said Darwin, “It is a humbug.”