IF I have been asked once I have been asked fifty times to explain the secret of that frothy, bubbly mass which clings to the stems of grasses and weeds in the summer meadows. Surely no one of our readers who has spent a June or July in the country can have failed to observe it. Even as I write, having just returned to my studio by a short cut across a meadow near by, my nether garments plainly show that I must have come in contact with five hundred of them during these few rods. In the height of its season this frothy nuisance monopolizes many a meadow. No one, unless most ordinarily clad, would care to wade through its slimy haunt. Certainly no stroller in his "Sunday best," having once experienced its unpleasant familiarity, would willingly give it a second opportunity.
Its name, I find, varies in different localities, but all, for obvious reasons, have the same salivary significance. In various parts of New England, for instance, it is known as cow-spit. In the southern States the snake is held responsible for it, as is shown in the popular name of snake-spit. I have frequently heard it called frog-spit, cuckoo-spit, toad-spit, and sheep-spit, and doubtless many other local terms of the same sort may be found. The cow-spittle theory, however, seems to have the greatest number of converts. Let me, at least, hasten to expose this miserable slander on "our rural divinity." Have, then, our cows nothing better to do than to go expectorating all over the meadows, road-sides, and hay-fields? And how busy, indeed, they must have been to so thoroughly cover the ground, to say nothing of their surprising aim, every glistening cluster of bubbles being landed not helter-skelter on the leaves and flowers, but only on the main stems of the various plants upon which they are found! Even in this little field outside my studio window, which is thus generously moistened, what a task! Why, it would certainly have taken at least ten cows in industrious expectoration to have left it so profusely decorated as now; but the fact is, there is not, nor has there been, a single cow in the field.
Only a few weeks ago I received a letter from an Ohio boy who, among other things, wanted to know what those slimy "gobs" on alders came from. He said they called them "snake-spit" out there, but that he had seen lots of them higher than any snake could get, unless it was a "racer," meaning the blacksnake, which, as is well known, is fond of climbing trees and bushes. And later came a letter from a lady in Lewiston, North Carolina, who had looked deeper into the matter, and whose inquiry throws a little light on the subject. She writes as follows:
"An old subscriber to 'Harper's Young People' desires to express the pleasure which your articles have afforded.... I have just finished the last, and have been out to examine the faded primroses, but only a long-legged green spider rewarded my search. Too late for our season." The readers of "Young People" will recall my article about the beautiful rosy moth which lives in the faded evening primrose, and which was the quest of the above writer, who further continues: "I do not think you have written about what is called here 'snake's-spittle,' a frothy exudation, perfectly white, surrounding a small speckled beetle (I suppose). I found several on my chrysanthemums about two weeks ago, but they seem to have disappeared now."
This supposed "small speckled beetle" lets out the secret of our "cow-spittle." The old cow is acquitted, and also the snake, who has enough mischief to answer for.
Each of these masses of bubbles is seen to surround the stem, upon which it clings, out of consideration to the popular tradition, spitted through the centre, as it were, with its culm of grass or branch of bramble or weed. But the true expectorator is within, laved in his own froth, his beak embedded in the juicy stem, and his suds factory continually at work. We have only to blow or scrape off the white bubbles, and we shall disclose him, even though he makes considerable effort to dodge out of sight, either in the remnant froth or around the stem. But it is not a beetle that we at last bring to view. It would be hard, indeed, for any one but a naturalist to decide on so short an acquaintance precisely what to call him. He is green and speckled in color, anywhere from a quarter to half an inch in length, depending upon his age, and somewhat to be anticipated in the extent of his show of suds. He is wide of brow, has rather prominent eyes, and tapers off somewhat wedge-shaped behind.
To the bug student these features are very significant, and he is not long in placing the creature among his proper kindred. He has a sucking beak, which connects him with the tribe of bugs, and other features ally him to the cicada, a humble though accomplished relative of the buzzing harvest-fly or hornet. He dwells in cool contentment here in his aerated bath, but he has not thus put himself to soak as the end and aim of his existence. Erelong he will graduate from these moist surroundings, and we shall see quite another sort of being, whom we would not dare to affront by the mere mention of such an ignominious, foamy existence. Here is one of them, which has just flown in around our evening lamp, and has settled upon my paper as I write. Not a strange coincidence, by any means, for others very like him have been there before when I have been writing on various other topics, and are the certain representatives of that nocturnal swarm which is always attracted by the light.
What a pretty atom he is as he rests here on my paper, clad in his bright emerald green, and only about a quarter of an inch in length! Let us catch him for our cabinet. But this is not so simple, for, like the proverbial flea, I put my finger on him, and he isn't there, but is to be seen yonder, at the farther edge of the table, the instant I lift my finger-tip. And there are others like him scattered about me beneath the lamp, one especially with four brilliant scarlet bands on his bright green wings, a near relative, though I am not sure at this moment whether he dates back to such a soaking as his little emerald fellow just described. We must be quick indeed to catch him, he is so alert; and while his entire visible emerald anatomy consists of a pair of nimble wings, no one would guess it now, for he certainly does not use them as he speeds here and there on our table. No, he has still another resource in those powerful hind legs of his, which soon take him out of our reach when he concludes to trust the spring. Here, then, is one of the host of midgets who are responsible for our soiled garments in our summer walks—the "frog-hopper," or "spume-bearer," in his perfection. The round of his life is thus given in Harris's beautiful volume, "Insects Injurious to Vegetation":
"The 'frog-hoppers' pass their whole lives on plants, on the stems of which their eggs are laid in the autumn. The following summer they are hatched, and the young immediately perforate the bark with their beaks, and begin to imbibe the sap. They take in such quantities of this that it oozes out of their bodies continually in the form of little bubbles, which soon completely cover up the insects. They thus remain entirely buried and concealed in large masses of foam until they have completed the final transformation, on which account the names of cuckoo-spittle, frog-spittle, and frog-hopper have been applied to them. The spittle in which they are sheltered may be seen in great abundance during the summer on the stems of our alders and willows. In the perfect state they are not thus protected, but are found on the plants in the latter part of summer fully grown, and preparing to lay their eggs. In this state they possess the power of leaping in a remarkable degree, and for this purpose the tips of their hind shanks are surrounded with little spines."