W Hamilton Gibson

EYE SPY

AFIELD WITH NATURE
AMONG FLOWERS AND ANIMATE THINGS

BY

WILLIAM HAMILTON GIBSON

ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR

NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1899

Copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

List of Designs

EYE SPY

A Naturalist's Boyhood

I AM enjoying a book, a picture, a statue, or, say, a piece of music. I know these to be the finished works of the man or the woman, but I invariably hark back to the boy or the girl.

What I want to discover is the precise time, in the lives of certain boys and girls, when the steel first struck the flint, the spark flew, and out streamed that jet of fire which never afterwards was extinguished.

I was reading an article entitled "Professor Wriggler," written by Mr. William Hamilton Gibson, which appeared in "Harper's Young People," in the number of October 31, 1893. I need not tell you that both old and young, at home and abroad, delight in reading what Mr. Hamilton Gibson has written, because he was not alone the most observant of naturalists, but a distinguished artist and a sympathetic author.

He thus filled a peculiar position in the literary and artistic world which is seldom given to any one man to fill. Besides being a naturalist from his boyhood, he was able to write better than most people what he wished to write, and to illustrate his articles in a way that was unique. Mr. Gibson's death a few days ago, therefore, has closed the career of a man who had the ability to interest a large number of people not only in natural history, but in art and literature.

The news of Mr. Gibson's death came to me suddenly, and as I was reading it I recalled an interesting talk I had with him less than a year ago about his work early in life and the way he got his start. I had been reading one of his articles to a lady, who, when she heard the name of the author, said:

"Why, I knew Mr. Hamilton Gibson long ago. When he was a lad he painted a lovely drop-curtain for us. He could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen then."

The next time I met Mr. Hamilton Gibson I asked him about this drop-curtain. "Do you remember it?"

"Certainly I do. We had a temperance society at Sandy Hook, Connecticut, and we gave a grand entertainment. I made the drop-curtain. It represented a wood. There was a rock in the foreground, and a Virginia-creeper was climbing over it."

"Was it an original composition?" I asked.

"I made many studies of the rock and the Virginia-creeper from nature. On the other side of the curtain I painted a drawing-room. There were a marble mantelpiece, a clock, and lace curtains. I don't think I enjoyed painting the clock as much as the Virginia-creeper."

"To paint a drop-curtain at fifteen or sixteen means that you had then a certain facility. But that could not have been your beginning. When did you break your shell? What chipped or cracked your egg so that your particular bird emerged, chirped, and finally took flight? That was what I wanted to know."

"Is that what you are after?" asked Mr. Hamilton Gibson. "From my baby days I was curious about flowers and insects. The two were always united in my mind. What could not have been more than a childish guess was confirmed in my later days." Then Mr. Hamilton Gibson paused. I could see he was recalling, not without emotion, some memories of the long past.

"I was very young, and playing in the woods. I tossed over the fallen leaves, when I came across a chrysalis. There was nothing remarkable in that, for I knew what it was. But, wonderful to relate—providentially I deem it—as I held the object in my hand a butterfly slowly emerged, then fluttered in my fingers."

"You were pleased with its beauty," I said.

"Oh! It was more than that. I do not know whether I was or was not a youngster with an imagination, but suddenly the spiritual view of a new or of another life struck me. I saw in this jewel born from an unadorned casket some inkling of immortality. Yes, that butterfly breaking from its chrysalis in my hand shaped my future career."

"But some young people may feel passing impulses, but how account for your artistic skill and literary powers?"

"As to the art side, at least deftness of hand came early. I had the most methodical of grandmothers. Every day I had a certain task. I made a square of patch-work for a quilt. I learned how to sew, and I can sew neatly to-day. I knew how to use my fingers."

"Did you like patch-work?" I inquired.

"I simply despised it. Sewing must have helped me, for it was eye-training, and when I went to work with a pencil and a paint-brush I really had no trouble. I read a great deal. I devoured Cooper's novels and the Rollo series: but there was one special volume, 'Harris on Insects,' I never tired of. I studied that over and over again. It was the illustrations of Marsh which fascinated me. I never found a bug, caterpillar, or butterfly that I did not compare my specimens with the Marsh pictures. I learned this way much which I have never forgotten."

"Had you any particular advantages?"

"Yes; my brother was a doctor, and he let me use his microscope, and so I acquired a knowledge of the details of flowers and insects that escape the naked eye. I pulled flowers to pieces, but not in the spirit of destruction, but so that I might better understand their structure. When I was ten I had a long illness. When I was getting better I was permitted to take an hour's or so turn in the garden. That hour I devoted to collecting insects and flowers. On my return to my room, what I had collected amused me until I could get out again next day or the day after."

"It was pleasure and study combined," I said.

"I was not conscious that I was studying. Then in my sick-room I began to draw and paint the insects. I think I was conscientious about it, and careful—perhaps minutely so. I tried to put on paper exactly what I saw, and nothing else. You say you like 'Professor Wriggler.' I drew him when I was ten or eleven, and I could not make him any more accurate to-day than I did thirty years ago."

"Were you encouraged at your work?" I inquired.

"Yes; once I was much pleased. I came across a curious insect. I could not find it in the books. I made a drawing of it and sent it to a professor of the Smithsonian, asking him to give me its scientific name. Back came by return mail my sketch, and under it the Latin name. The professor wrote me that if the people who were always annoying him with pictures of impossible bugs would only send him as accurate a picture as was mine, he never would have any more bother."

"Did you have any setbacks?"

"Yes; and I haven't forgotten it up to to-day. I was always collecting, and I had brought together every insect I had found in my neighborhood. As I took them home I pinned them in the drawers of an old-fashioned bureau. In time the whole of the drawers, bottom and sides, were full of pinned specimens, and there was room for no more. I had saved enough money to buy a cabinet, and I went to New York and purchased one. When I returned home the first thing I did was to look at my precious collection. When I opened a drawer there was a confused mass of wings only. One single wretch of a black ant had got in, and had passed the word to 10,000 other black ants. They had eaten the bodies of my insects in all the drawers. That quite broke my heart."

"But your writing. How did that come about?" I asked.

"I don't think that you can develop in one direction only. You must unbosom yourself. You are forced to tell or to write about the things you have most at heart. When I was a small boy I wrote a book for myself, and called it 'Botany on the Half-shell.' The first thing I ever wrote which was printed was an article for one of Messrs. Harper's publications, and I made the pictures for it. That was my début."

"Then your work went hand in hand?"

"Certainly. The one was the stimulant of the other. We all grew up together. The days spent in my room when I was ill helped me. I think I studied flowers then, so that their forms and colors were indelibly impressed on my mind. When I was older I made a small bunch of flowers in wax. Not a detail escaped me. I made moulds of all kinds of leaves. Once I put together a rose, some sprigs of mignonette and heliotrope in wax, and gave them to my dear old friend, Henry Ward Beecher. He was delighted with my flowers, and put them on his study table. Presently Mrs. Beecher came in. She ran to the flowers and broke the rose all to pieces."

"How could she have done that?" I asked.

"It must have been with her nose. She wanted to smell the rose."

Then Mr. Hamilton Gibson showed me some monster drawings of flowers—Brobdingnagian ones. The flowers opened and closed when you pulled a string, showing their interior structure. Here were bees or other insects, and they flew into the flowers, collected the honey, and, above all, the pollen, and buzzed out again. He explained to me how plant life would perish if it were not for certain insects, which bring a new existence to flowers; for without these winged helpers there would be no longer any varieties of flowers or seeds.

You will see, then, that in tracing the beginning of Mr. Hamilton Gibson's career what I mean by harking backward.

I am certain, too, that in every boy and girl there is something good and excellent. Like the flower visited by the bee, all it wants is impulse. Then, as Mr. Hamilton Gibson explained it to me, will come the blossoming, and lastly perfect fruitage.

Barnet Phillips.

The Story of The Floundering Beetle

AMONG my somewhat numerous correspondence from young people, I recall several wondering inquiries about a certain fat, floundering "beetle," as "blue as indigo"; and when we consider how many other observing youngsters, including youngsters of larger growth, have looked upon this uncouth shape in the path, lawn, or pasture, will speculate as to its life history, it is perhaps well to make this floundering blue beetle better acquainted with his unappreciative neighbors.

What are the lazy blue insects doing down there in the grass, for there are usually a small family of them. With the exception of their tinselled indigo-blue coat, there is certainly very little to admire in them. But what they lack in beauty they make up for in other ways. There are many of their handsomer cousins whose history is not half as interesting as that of this poor beetle that we tread upon in the grass. His neighbor insect, the tiger-beetle, running hither and thither with legs of wonderful speed, and with the agility of a fly on the wing, readily escapes our approach; but this clumsy, helpless blue beetle must needs plead for mercy by his color alone, because he has no means to avert our crushing step. A little girl who met me on the country road recently summed up the characteristics of the blue beetle pretty well. The portrait was unmistakable. "I've got a funny blue bug at home in a box that I want to show you," said she; "he's blue and awful fat, and hasn't got any wings, but when you touch him, he just turns over on his back, and trembles his toes and leaks big yellow drops out of his elbows." I have shown her beetle—three views of him, in fact—about the natural size, one of them on his back and "leaking" at his elbows, for such is the infallible habit of the insect when disturbed—a trick which has also given him the name of the "oil beetle." He is also known as the indigo beetle.

But of what use can such a queer beetle be to himself or any one else—a beetle that is not only without wings, but is so fat and floundering that he can hardly lift his unwieldy body from the ground, and which, upon being surprised, can only "play possum," and exude great drops of oil (?) upon our palm as we examine him?

But as he pours the vials of his wrath upon us he would doubtless fain have us understand that he was not always thus unable to take care of himself, that he was not always the clumsy, crawling creature that he now is. As he lies there on his back, the yellow, oily globules of surplus "elbow grease" swelling larger and larger at his leaky elbows, and one by one falling on the paper beneath him, we may almost fancy the monologue which might be going on in that blue head of his.

"Yes, I am indeed a clumsy creature," he might be saying, as he stares upward into our faces with fixed indigo eyes, "and my cumbersome body is a burden. But I was not always what you now see. Ah, you should have seen me as a baby! Was there ever such a lively, acrobatic, venturesome, plucky baby as I, even when I was a day old? Shall I tell you some of my feats? Everybody knows me as I am now; but I have taken care that few shall learn my earlier history. It takes a sharp eye to follow my pranks of babyhood, and no one has been smart enough to do it yet, but I will at least let you into the secret of my life as far as it has been found out. I am little over a year old. I was born under a stone in a meadow last April, when I crept out of a golden-yellow case so small that you could hardly see it. I believe your books say I was about a sixteenth of an inch long at that time. Ah! when I think of what I was and what I could do then, and look at what I am now, I sometimes wonder whether that lively babyhood of mine has not all been a mocking dream.

"Do you wonder that I am as blue as indigo, and am occasionally forced to resort to my oil-tank to still the troubled waters of my later experience? Well, as I was saying (pardon this fresh display of tears), when I crept out of that filmy egg-sac I was just ready for anything, and spoiling for adventure. I found myself with a slender, agile body of thirteen joints, and three pairs of the sprightliest, spider-like legs you ever saw, each tipped with three little sharp claws. Now I knew that these long legs and claws were not given to me at this early babyhood for nothing, so I looked about for something to try them on. I had not a great while to wait, for as I crept along through the grass roots beneath the edge of the stone, I heard a welcome sound, which is music to all babies of my kind. I remembered having heard the same music in my dreams while inside the little yellow case, but now it seemed louder than ever, and in another minute I was almost blown off my feet by the breeze which the noise made, and a great black, hairy giant, as big as a house, pounced down just outside the stone. He had a great black head, and six enormous legs as big round as trees. Think how a bumblebee would look to a wee baby not half as big as a hyphen in one of your books! Did I run when I saw him coming? Not a bit of it. I just waited until he came close to me, and then I jumped on his back, and put those eighteen little claws of mine to good use as I crept over his great spiny body, and finally found a snug resting-place beneath it. And then I waited, clinging tightly with my clutching feet. In another moment I had begun to take my first outing; and did ever baby have such a ride, and to such music! After the bumblebee had remained under the stone a little while he turned and went out again. No sooner did he get to the edge than he spread his great buzzing wings, and away we went over the world, higher and higher, miles high, over big oceans and mountains. I could see them all beneath me as I clung to the underside of the bee. I believe I must finally have got dizzy and faint, for I remember at last finding myself at rest in a queer thicket of greenish poles with big yellow balls at the top of them, and great giant leaves fringed with long, glistening hairs. They told me afterwards it was a willow blossom.

"It seemed a very good place to rest, so I dropped off from my bee and remained. Everywhere about me, as I looked, the air was yellow with these blossoms, and full of the wing-music of the bees. But, as I have said, I was a restless baby, and having had a taste of travel I soon tired of this idle life, and began to get ready for another ride. My chance soon came. This time it was a honey-bee. She alighted in the flower next to mine, but I quietly piled over and clutched upon her leg, and was soon snugly tucked away under her body, with my flat head between its segments. And now for the first time I began to feel hungry; and what was more natural than to take a bite from the tender flesh of this bee, so easily available? I did it, and liked it so well that I adopted this bee for my mother for quite a long while, taking many, many long rides every day, and always coming back to the prettiest little house on a bench under the trees. This was a sort of bee hotel, with many hundreds of guests. It was all partitioned off inside into little six-sided rooms, and the walls were so thin that you could see through them. Indeed, I soon came to like this little home so well that one morning I decided that I would not leave it again. I had begun to get tired of my roving life. I saw a lot of little white fat babies tucked away in some of these little rooms, and this very bee which I had adopted as my mother was engaged in bringing food to some of these babies and sealing them up in their nests. This was enough for me. I concluded to bring my roving habit to a close, and become a bee baby in truth; so watching for my opportunity, I loosened my clutch upon the mother bee, and dropped into one of the little rooms.

"Then I became sleepy, and can tell you nothing more than that when I woke up I didn't know who or what I was. My six spider legs had gone, and I had a half-dozen little short feet instead; and instead of the sprightly ideas of my baby days, the thought of such a thing as even moving was a bore. But I was hungrier than ever, and the first thing I did was to fall upon another fat youngster who disputed the room with me, and make short work of him. That was breakfast." When dinner-time came, I found it right at my mouth. That busy mother of mine had fully supplied my wants, and packed my room full to the ceiling with the most delicious, fragrant bread of flowers made of pollen and honey.

"Oh, those were good old times, with all I wanted to eat all the time, and everything I ate turning to appetite! Too soon, too soon I found myself getting drowsy again, and, I can only remember awakening from a queer dream, to find even my six tiny legs gone, and, what is worse, my mouth also. While wondering and hoping that this was but a troubled vision, I was plunged into sleep again, and dreamed that I was locked up in a mummy-case for over a week. And now comes the end, the cycle of my story. From this nightmare mummy-case I finally awoke—awoke, and emerged as you now see me. Do you wonder that I have had the blues ever since at the memory of those honeyed days, now forever fled? Instead of sporting aloft in airy skyward flights, I am now a miserable groundling. Instead of sweet, fragrant bread of flowers, I am now forced to break my fast on acrid buttercup leaves. But I shall live again, with joys several hundred times multiplied, live again in my children, for whose jolly time in the autumn I shall soon lay my plans—golden promises—here in the ground beneath the buttercup leaves, close to a burrow where lives a burly bumblebee.

"But I have not told you all of my history, and will leave you to fill in the blank spaces, even as some of the scientists have to do."

Fox-fire

THE most recent experience of my own with the mysterious fox-fire occurred a short time ago in a homeward drive with a companion from a botanizing expedition about twelve miles distant. It was near ten o'clock. The sky was overcast, only a stray star of the first magnitude now and then peeping out from between the rifts of hazy floating clouds. The new moon, "wi' th' auld moon i' her arm," had sunk below the western hills, and so dark had it become that the road ahead, at best but a faint suggestion, was occasionally lost for minutes together in the deepened gloom of the overhanging trees, only the keener nocturnal vision of the trusted horse affording the slightest hope of keeping in the wheel-tracks.

In one of these dark passages we were suddenly surprised by a gleam of light a few rods ahead to the left, and in a moment more we were directly abreast of it. On many previous night-journeys I had been on the lookout for some such surprise as this, as yet only rewarded by the tiny sparkle of the glowworm in the grass. But here, at last, it came in a shape that I could not have anticipated—an upright column of phosphorescence, brilliant at the upper extremity, and more broken below for a space of several feet. The brilliancy of the light may be inferred from the following query and its answer:

"What is that light yonder?" I asked my companion.

"A lantern reflected in water," was his reply.

The mass of light shone verily like a lantern, and the present interpretation was somewhat reminiscent of a previous flickering lantern which we had seen, with its accompaniment of great magnified moving shadows on barn and hay-stack, as it assisted in the tardy chores of a whistling farmer lad.

But this light was of a greenish, ghostly hue, and perfectly motionless, and had withal a certain weird, uncanny glare, which belongs alone to fox-fire. It was impossible to locate its distance from us. It might as easily be one rod as five. I concluded to investigate its source, and, groping my way through the dewy bushes, soon confronted it. It seemed to glow with added brilliancy as I approached it, and as I stood face to face within a few inches of it no vestige of material surface appeared to sustain it; it seemed hanging motionless in mid-air. I reached out my hand, which momentarily intervened like a black silhouette against the glow, with which it soon came in contact. Upon further investigation, this proved to be the contact of a mere prosaic fence-post, which, for some mysterious reason, had been singled out for glorification among the ten thousand others of its neighbors and transformed into a pillar of fire. The post was about six inches in diameter, its summit an unbroken mass of light, which extended in more or less broken patches below for a distance of six feet, thus suggesting the effect of the rippling elongated reflection of a lantern in water noticed by my companion, and which would doubtless have been so accepted by the average passing observer without further thought.

The most luminous upper portions were free from bark, the exposed patches of wood below being equally brilliant. Clutching at the more available part of the post, I was enabled to sink my fingers deep into its decayed fibre, and succeeded in tearing off a long fragment. The outer surface of this particular piece had been covered with bark and not especially brilliant, but the cavity of yielding moist fibre thus exposed, as well as the inner surface of the dislodged piece, poured forth a perfect flood of greenish light, indicating that the damp uncanny fire extended to the very core of the post, which was saturated with the phosphorescent essence. I laid this and other fragments in the back of the carriage, where its glare met our eyes whenever we turned to look upon it.

Taking it beneath the lamp-light upon our return home, it resolved itself into a very ordinary piece of yellowish rotten wood. In a more shaded corner of the room it appeared as though white-washed, and upon taking it into a closet or out into the night again its flame gradually rekindled, as though feeding upon the darkness, until it appeared precisely as when we found it.

By enclosing the specimen in a tin box with moist moss I was enabled to prolong the effulgence until the next evening, but it had entirely disappeared by the following night, at which time its original haunt, the post, was also doubtless lost in the darkness. A week later I again passed its neighborhood in the late hours without the slightest hint of its presence.

This is the mysterious "fox-fire" or "ghost-fire" which has so imposed upon the imaginations of credulous country folk the world over, doubtless a conspicuous factor in many a harrowing tale in the legendary or traditional lore of spooks and goblins.

I remember the breathless interest with which as a boy I listened to the weird story, whose scene was located not far from my native town, of a ghostly light that flickered about the eaves of a certain old ruin of a house in the neighborhood, and also above the well close by in the weedy waste of the former door-yard.

The light was seen by many for several consecutive nights. It fairly glowed into a halo up from the wooden curb which surmounted the well, where it was viewed at a safe distance with bated breath by a curious crowd of villagers, not one of whom would have dared to steal up and surprise the innocent spook in its haunt—doubtless a mass of fox-fire which had found its brief, congenial home in the decaying boards within the tottering well-curb. Of course the house was "haunted" for evermore, and rustic tradition for a whole generation was rich in fabulous tales of the "haunted well," and there was serious talk of unearthing the nameless mystery which lay at the bottom of it.

A certain saw-mill was also tenanted by a similar luminous ghost one night after a heavy rain, but the shape of the spook in this case was so peculiar, and so exactly corresponded with the parallel cross-boxes of the old broken water-wheel, that it was considered harmless.

But it is scarcely to be wondered at that a phenomenon so startling and inexplicable to the rustic mind should be associated with the supernatural. One's first experience with fox-fire, especially if he chances upon a specimen of some size, is apt to be a memorable incident.

My own first encounter dates back to the age of about eight years. While walking through a wood at night I chanced upon what I supposed to be a large glowworm in my path. I picked it up, only to find in my hand a hard piece of dead twig.

A later experience, which, while quite startling for a moment, was robbed of its full terrors by the reminiscence of the first. As in the former case, I was returning home at night through a dark, damp wood. I was skirting the border of a small runnel, when I was suddenly brought to a breathless standstill, apparently confronted by the glaring eyes of a panther, or perhaps a tiger; certainly no cat or fox or owl was possessed of eyes of such dimensions or wide interspace as those which glared at me from the dark shadow of yonder copse. But in a moment my quickened pulse had subsided, and I calmly returned the greenish phosphorescent gaze, observing that a singular accident had re-enforced the first illusion by a wonderful semblance to ears and outline of body, in keeping with the formidable eyes.

In a moment I was attacking the foe, my hands stroking his rough barky forehead, and my fingers penetrating his eyes, which proved to be two holes in the bark of a fallen log, the farther side of which disclosed a brilliant, luminous patch which, as I invaded it with my hand, proved to be bare, exposed wood. Taking hold of the loose bark, a vigorous pull dislodged a great piece some three feet long, at the same time liberating a glare of greenish light from the exposed surface of the log, which was responded to in sympathy by the inner surface of the slab of bark in my hands, in all representing about six square feet of brilliant phosphorescence.

I carried a fragment home, and upon inspecting it by lamp-light, found it white with thready mould, resembling the so-called "dry-rot" of mouldy timber—doubtless the mother of some well-known fungus, or "toadstool," which might have been discerned upon the log the following day had I chanced thither.

Hawthorne in one of his books records a remarkable personal encounter with this weird fox-fire, and one which cost him dearly. He was on a journey by canal-boat, which had stopped en route for a brief period at midnight. During the interval he had stepped ashore, and was decoyed into a neighboring wood by the bright glow, which proved to be a fallen tree ablaze with phosphorescence.

In his surprise and interest he lost all account of time, and thus missed his boat, and was obliged to "foot it" for miles on the midnight tow-path, which he was enabled to do by the aid of a big brand of the tree which he used as a flambeau.

Almost any damp wood, especially after a rain, is likely to disclose its fox-fire, but it occasionally appears under circumstances where we little expect it. A few weeks since, having occasion to go to my refrigerator after dark, I noticed a brilliant glowing object upon the floor beneath it, which I found upon inspection to be merely a piece of damp bread. Can it be that the yeast fungus too may give off effulgence with its carbonic acid at its whim? or was the light traceable to the perceptible odor of lobster with which it had evidently been previously in contact?

Dead fish are frequently thus luminous, and brilliant phosphorescence is often an accompaniment of decomposition of both animal and vegetable matter. A few decaying potatoes will often light up a corner of a cellar which is dim by daylight, and an instance is on record of a certain cellar full of these vegetables giving off such a flood of light as to lead observers to suppose that the premises were on fire.

Many animals, and especially fishes and insects, possess luminous properties. The familiar examples of the glowworm and fire-fly hardly need be mentioned. Then there are the big lantern-flies, with their luminous heads; and brilliant snapping beetles of the South, with their two glowing headlights, so effectively employed as ornaments for the hair and otherwise in the toilet of the Cuban belle. But the sea is the home of luminous life. From the diminutive myriads of the noctiluca, which sets the sea aflame, to the numerous larger finny tribes, the ocean is peopled with animal life, which, though dwelling in depths scarce reached by the faintest gleam from the sun, swim about enveloped in their self-illumined halo.

While all these phenomena come under the general term of phosphorescence, the inference of the presence of phosphorus is incorrect; many substances without a trace of phosphorus in their constitution emit light with equal brilliancy.

The well-known commercial article called "luminous paint" is an apt example, which, while containing no trace of phosphorus, glows like fox-fire at night, especially after having been exposed to the sun's rays during the day, giving forth in the dark hours the light which it has thus absorbed, and being thus of utility in its application to clock faces and match-boxes.

Calcined lime and burnt oyster-shells, in combination with certain acids, become luminous at night by the similar power of absorption and transmission of light vibration which is supposed to be the secret of much of the so-called phosphorescence.

But fox-fire is believed to be of a different nature, more chemical in its character, and usually emanates from a fungus, either visible in the form of mould or toadstool, or existing as an almost invisible essence which saturates the decaying wood, a species known as Thelaphora cerulea being credited with most of the luminous manifestations.

Fox-fire is occasionally put to a cruel utility by hunters in association with the "salt-lick" for deer. Salt is scattered in a selected spot, and a piece of fox-fire adjusted beyond it in direct line of the aim of the rifle, which is securely fixed in place. The sudden obscuration of the light is a sufficient signal for the still-hunter, who has only to pull the trigger to secure the game, even though the latter be entirely hid in the darkness.

The more common examples of fox-fire are small bits of decayed wood, but most astonishing specimens have been observed. In addition to the fine example mentioned by Hawthorne, there is an authentic record of a single log twenty-four feet in length and a foot in diameter which was one mass of brilliant phosphorescence.

A Homely Weed with Interesting Flowers

THE recent article from my pen on the "Riddle of the Bluets," and which showed the important significance of its two forms of blossoms, suggests that a few more similar expositions of the beautiful mysteries of the common flowers which we meet every day in our walks, and which we claim to "know" so well, may serve to add something to the interest of our strolls afield. It is scarcely fair to assert that familiarity can breed contempt in our relations to so lovely an object as a flower, but certain it is that this every-day contact or association, especially with the wild things of the wood, meadow, and way-side, is conducive to an apathy which dulls our sense to their actual attributes of beauty. Many of these commonplace familiars of the copse and thicket and field are indeed like voices in the wilderness to most of us. We forget that the "weed" of one country often becomes a horticultural prize in another, even as the mullein, for which it is hard for the average American to get up any enthusiasm, and which is tolerated with us only in a worthless sheep pasture, flourishes in distinction in many an English or Continental garden as the "American velvet plant."

The extent of our admiration often depends upon the relative rarity of the flower rather than upon its actual claims to our appreciation. The daisy which whitens our meadows—the "pesky white-weed" of the farmer—we are perfectly willing to see in the windrows of the scythe or tossed in the air by the fork of the hay-maker. The meed of our appreciation of the single blossom becomes extremely thin when spread over a ten-acre lot. How rarely do we see a bouquet of daisies on a country table? And yet, strange inconsistency! the marguerite of our goodwife's window-garden, almost identical with the daisy and not one whit prettier, is a prize, because it came from the "florist's," and cost twenty-five cents, with five cents extra for the pot.

A certain thrifty granger of the writer's acquaintance was recently converted from the error of his attitude towards the "tarnal weeds and brush." He was one of the tribe of blind, misguided vandals who had always deemed it his first duty "after hayin'" to invade with his scythe all the adjacent roadside, to "tidy things up," reducing to most unsightly untidiness that glorious wild garden of August's floral cornucopia, that luxuriant tangle of purple eupatorium, the early asters, golden-rod, vervains, wild-carrot, and meadow-rue.

He was converted in the sanctuary, where one August Sabbath he beheld by the side of the pulpit, dignified by a large, beautiful vase, a great bouquet of this very tall, purple thoroughwort, meadow-rue, and wild-carrot of his abomination, and which had actually fallen before his scythe on the evening previous. "Well, there!" he exclaimed; "I didn't realize they was so pretty!"

The beauty of the commonplace often requires the aid of the artist as its interpreter, a fact which Browning realized when he expressed, through Fra Lippo Lippi:

"We're made so that we love
First when we see them painted, things which we have passed
Perhaps a hundred times, nor cared to see."

An illustration of the truth of this axiom was afforded in a recent incident in my experience. Sitting at the open window of my country studio one summer day, engaged in making a portrait of a common weed, a friendly farmer, chancing "across lots," seeing me at work, sauntered up to "pass the time o' day." As he leaned on the window-sill his eye fell upon the drawing before me.

"My!" he exclaimed, "but ain't that pooty?"

"What!" I retorted, "and will you admit that this drawing of a weed is pretty?"

"Yes, your draft thar is pooty, but you artist fellows alliz makes 'em look pootier 'n they ought to."

So much for the mere attributes of manifest outward beauty without regard to consideration of "botany" or the structural beauty of the flowers. The "botanist" finds beauty everywhere, even among the homeliest of Flora's hosts. But in the light of the "new botany," which recognizes the insect as the important affinity of the flower—the key to its various puzzling features of color, form, and fragrance—every commonest blossom which we thought we had "known" all our lives, and every homely weed scarce worth our knowing, now becomes a rebuke, and offers us a field of investigation as fresh and promising as is offered by the veriest rare exotic of the conservatory; more so, indeed, because these latter are strangers in a strange land, and divorced from their ordained insect affinities. The plebeian daisy now becomes a marvel of a flower indeed—five hundred wonderful little mechanisms packed together in a single golden disk. The red clover refuses to recognize us now unless properly introduced by that "burly bumblebee" with which its life is so strangely linked.

The barn-yard weeds need no longer be considered uninteresting and commonplace, because their mysteries have not yet been discovered, and I can do no better in my present chapter than to select one of their number and redeem it from its hitherto lowly place among them—one of the homeliest of them all, and whose blossoms are scarce noticed by any one except a botanist.

In my initial illustration is shown a sketch of the Figwort, or scrophularia, a tall, spindling weed, with rather fine, luxuriant leaves, it is true, but with a tall, curiously branching spray of small, insignificant purplish-olive flowers, with not even a perfume, like the mignonette, to atone for its plainness. But it has an odor if not a perfume, and it has a nectary which secretes the beads of sweets for its pet companion insects, which in this instance do not happen to be bees or butterflies, but most generally wasps of various kinds, as these insects are not so particular as to the quality of their tipple as bees are apt to be. But the figwort has found out gradually through the ages that wasps are more serviceable in the cross-fertilization of its flowers than other insects, and it has thus gradually modified its shape, odor, and nectar especially to these insects.

A. First Day's Welcome—Stigma at the Doorway.
A¹. First Day—Sectional View.
B. Second Day's Welcome—Stigma bent downward beneath two withered Stamens at Doorway.
B¹. Second Day—Sectional View.
C. Third Day's Welcome.—Four Stamens at Doorway.
D. Fourth Day.—Fall of Blossom. Its Mission fulfilled.

Let us then take a careful look at these queer little homely flowers, and for the time being consider them as mere devices—first, to insure the visit of an insect, and, second, to make that insect the bearer of the pollen from one blossom to the stigma of another. Here we see a flower with three distinct welcomes on three successive days.

Fig. 1

The flower-bud usually opens in the morning, and shows a face as at A, which must be fully understood by looking at the side section shown at A¹.

The anthers and pollen are not yet ripe, but the stigma is ready, and now guards the doorway. To-morrow morning we shall see a new condition of things at that doorway, as seen at B and B¹. The stigma has now bent down out of the way, while two anthers have unfolded on their stalks and now shed their pollen at the threshold. The third morning, or perhaps even sooner, the other pair come forward, and we see the opening of the blossom as at C. Blossoms in all these three conditions are to be found on this cluster.

Fig. 2

A small wasp is now seen hovering about the flowers, and we must turn our attention to him as seen in Figs. 1, 2, and 3. The insect alights, we will assume, on a blossom of the second day (Fig. 1), clinging with all his feet, and thrusting his tongue into the beads of nectar shown at A¹ and B¹. He now brings his breast or thorax, or perhaps the underside of his head against the pollen, and is thoroughly dusted with it. Leaving the blossom, we see him in flight, as at Fig. 2, and very soon he is seen to come to a freshly opened flower, which he sips as before. The pollen is thus pushed against the projecting stigma, as shown at Fig. 3, and thus, one by one, the flowers are [cross-fertilized].

Fig. 3

The stigma, after receiving pollen, immediately bends downward and backward, as shown in B¹, to give place to the ripening anthers, and shortly after the last pair of them have shed their pollen the blossom, having then fulfilled its functions, falls off, as shown at D. This may be on the afternoon of the third day, or not until the fourth. If not visited by insects it may chance to remain the longer time; but more than one tiny wasp gets his head into such a blossom, and is surprised with a tumble, his weight pulling the blossom from its attachment.

The result of that pollen upon the stigma is quickly seen in the growing ovary or pod, which enlarges rapidly on the few succeeding days, as in E.

E

Many species of hornets and wasps, large and small, are to be seen about the figwort blooms, occasionally bees, frequently bumblebees, which usually carry away the pollen on the underside of their heads.

Who shall any longer refer to the figwort as an "uninteresting weed"?

Two Fairy Sponges

THE pretty works of my fairy and his companions in mischief are seen on every hand from spring until winter, but few of us have ever seen the fay, for Puck is no myth nor Ariel a creature of the poet's fancy. Their prototype existed in entomological entity and demoralizing mischievousness ages before the traditional fay, in diminutive human form, had been dreamed of. The quaint, bow-legged little "brownies," which have brought our entire land beneath the witching spell of their drollery, can scarce claim prestige in the ingenuity of their mischief, nor can the droll doings of imps and elves chronicled in the folk-lore of many an ancient people begin to match the actual doings of the real, live, busy little fairy whose works abound in meadow, wood, and copse, and which any of us may discover if we can once be brought to realize that our imp is visible. Then we must not forget that ideal type of the true "fairy"—a paragon of beauty and goodness, with golden hair and dazzling crown of brilliants, with her airy costume of gossamer begemmed and spangled, her dainty, twinkling feet and gorgeously painted butterfly wings. And we all remember that wonderful wand which she carried so gracefully, and whose simple touch could evoke such a train of surprising consequences.

And who shall say that our pretty fay is a myth, or her magic wand a wild creation of the fancy? May we not see the wonder-workings of that potent wand on every hand, even though our fairy has eluded us while she cast the spell? There are a host of these wee fairies continually flitting about among the trees plotting all sorts of mischief and leaving an astonishing witness of their visitation in their trail as they pass from leaf to leaf or twig to twig. But these fairies, like those of Grimm and Laboulaye, are agile little atoms, and are not to be caught in their pranks if they know it, and even though our eye chanced to rest on one of them, it is doubtful whether we would recognize him, so different is the guise of these real fairies from those invented creatures of the books. Once, when a mere boy, I caught one of the little imps at work, and watched her for several minutes without dreaming that I had been looking at a real fairy all this time. What did I see? I was sitting in a clearing, partly in the shade of a sapling growth of oak which sprang from the trunk of a felled tree. While thus half reclining I noticed a diminutive, black, wasp-like insect upon one of the oak leaves close to my face.

The insect seemed almost stationary, and not inclined to resent my intrusion, so I observed her closely. I soon discovered that she was inserting her sting into the midstem of the leaf, or perhaps withdrawing it therefrom, for in a few moments the midge flew away. I remember wondering what the insect was trying to do, and not until years later did I realize that I had been witnessing the secret arts of the magician of the insect world—a very Puck or Ariel, as I have said—a fairy with a magic wand which any sprite in elfindom might covet.

The wand of Herrmann never wrought such a wonder as did this magic touch of the little black fly upon the oak leaf. Had I chanced to visit the spot a few weeks later, what a beautiful red-cheeked apple could I have plucked from that hemstitched leaf!

This was but one of a veritable swarm of mischief-making midges everywhere flitting among the trees; and while they are quite as various in their shapes as the traditional forms of fairies—the ouphes and imps, the gnomes and elves of quaintest mien, as well as the dainty fays and sylphs and sprites—there is one feature common to them all which annihilates the ideal of all the pictorial authorities on fairydom. Neither Grimm, nor Laboulaye, nor any of the masters of fairy-lore, seems to have discovered that a fairy has no right to those butterfly wings which the pages of books show us. Those of the real fairy are quite different, being narrow and glassy, and bear the magician's peculiar sign in their crisscross veins.

What a world of mischief is going on here in the fields! Here is one of the witching sprites among the drooping blossoms of the oak. "You would fain be an acorn," she says, as she pierces the tender blossoms with her wand, "but I charge thee bring forth a string of currants;" and immediately the blossoms begin to obey the behest, and erelong a mimic string of currants droops upon the stem. Upon another tender branch near by a jet-black, gauze-winged elf is casting a similar spell, which is this time followed by a tiny, downy, pink-cheeked peach. And here alights a tiny sprite, whose magic touch evokes even from the same leaf a cherry, or a coral bead, perhaps a huge green apple! How many of us have seen the little elf that spends her life among the tangles of creeping cinque-foil, and decks its stems with those brilliant scarlet beads which we may always find upon them, looking verily like tempting berries.

We see here about us swarms of these busy elves in obedience to their own peculiar mischievous promptings. What whispers this glittering midge to the oak twig here to which she clings so closely? We may not guess; but if we pass this way a month or so hence, what a beautiful response in the glistening, rosy-clouded sponge which encircles the stem! "But this sponge is not pretty enough by half," exclaims a rival fairy. "Wait until you see what yonder sweetbrier rose will do for me." Hovering thither among its thorns, she imparts her spell, and, lo! within a month the stem is clothed in emerald fringe, which grows apace, until it has become a dense pompon of deep crimson—a sponge worthy the toilet of the fairy queen herself!

Who shall still say that the fairy is a myth!

These two fairy sponges are familiar to us all, at least to those of us who dwell for even a small part of the year in the country, and use our eyes. Indeed, we need go no farther than our city parks, or even our "back-yard" gardens, to find at least one of them, for the sweetbrier is rarely neglected by this particular fairy.

So many specimens of both of these sponges have been sent to me by "Round Table" correspondents and others that I have begun to wonder how many of those other young people who have seen them and kept silence have wondered at their secret.

The two fairies which are responsible for these sponges have been captured by the inquisitive scientist, and have had their portraits taken for the rogues' gallery, and now we see them stuck upon tiny little three-cornered pieces of paper, and pinned in the specimen case as mere insects—gall-flies. The one is labelled Cynips seminator, the other, Cynips rosæ.

A. One of the points detached.
B. Section of the base.
C, D. Cynips emerging.

And now the prosaic entomologist proceeds to supplant fact for fancy. This gall-fly is a sort of cousin to the wasps, but what we would call its sting is more than a mere sting. Like a sting, it seems to puncture the bark or leaf, and at the same time probably to inject its drop of venom; but at the same time it conveys to the depths of the wound a tiny egg, or perhaps a host of them. One gall-fly is thus a magician in chemistry, at least, for no sooner are these eggs deposited than the wounded branch begins to swell and form a cellular growth or tumor about them, the character of this abnormal growth depending upon the peculiar charm of the venomous touch—to one a tiny coral globe, to another a cluster of spines, to another a curved horn, and to our cynips of the white or scrub oak a peculiar globular, spongy growth which completely envelops the stem, sometimes to the size of a small apple. In its prime it is a beautiful object, with its fibrous, glistening texture studded with pink points. But this condition lasts but a few days, when the entire mass becomes brownish and woolly, which fact has given this insect the common name of "wool-sower."

And now we must lose no time if we would follow its history to its complete cycle. If we put one of these faded sponges in a tight-closed box, we shall in a few days learn the secret of its being. For this singular mimic fruit which has sprung at the behest of the gall-fly, like other fruits, has its seeds—seeds which are animated with peculiar life, and which sprout in a way we would hardly expect. Within a fortnight after gathering, perhaps, we find our box swarming with tiny, black flies, while if we dissect the sponge we find its long-beaked seeds entirely empty, and each with a clean round hole gnawed through its shell, explaining this host of gall-flies, all similar to the parent of a few weeks since, and all bent on the same mischief when you shall let them loose at the window.

The beautiful sponge of the sweet-brier has been called into being by exactly similar means, and its hard, woody centre is packed full of cells, at first each with its tiny egg, and then with its plump larva, followed by the chrysalis, and at length by the emergence of the full-fledged Cynips rosæ.

This sponge-gall of the rose is commonly known as the Bedegnar, and, like all other members of its tribe, as with the familiar oak-apple, was long supposed to be a regular accessory fruit of its parent stalk. Among early students were many superstitions connected with the Bedegnar, the nature of which may readily be inferred from its other common name of "Robin's Pin-cushion."

Green Pansies

THE casual observer may perhaps have noticed that interesting law of nature which governs the coloring of flowers, and which confines the hues of a given flower, or perhaps a botanical group of flowers, to two colors and the combination of these colors. The three primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—are rarely to be seen in the blossoms of the same botanical group. Thus we observe roses, hollyhocks, chrysanthemums, and tulips in all shades of white, yellow, pink, red, and crimson, even almost approaching black, and numberless combinations of these colors, but never blue. The same is true with dahlias, zinnias, lilies, gladioli, pinks, and portulacas.

On the other hand, flowers which are notably blue—as in the bellworts, or "Canterbury-bells," and larkspur, which vary from white, through all shades of blue, to purple, pink, and even reds—never show any trace of yellow. This color limitation of blossoms was noted by De Candolle early in the present century, who classified flowers in two series as to their hues. The first, which included the yellow, was called the Xanthic; the second, which omitted the yellow, the Cyanic.

World-wide fame and a comfortable fortune await the florist who shall produce a variety of blue rose, tulip, hollyhock, or dahlia, or a yellow geranium or larkspur, which all persist in their fidelity to their particular color series. And yet nature gives us occasional exceptions which, however, only serve by their contrast to emphasize the universal law. Thus we see the water-lily group—if we include the two separate orders Nymphæa and Nelumbo—with blossoms of pink, yellow, and blue. The water-lilies of this latter color, allied to the Egyptian yellow lotus, which were to be seen in the Union Square fountain, New York, last summer, were almost lost in the azure of the sky which their surrounding waters reflected, and yet they clearly had no right to include blue in their gamut; purple or red possibly, but not blue.

But this is not so remarkable an exception as we find in the hyacinth, in which the three primary colors are to be seen with notable purity—blues, yellows, and reds—and thus with possibilities of almost any conceivable color, under cultivation and careful selection.

Another striking exception, and one which would have puzzled De Candolle for its color classification, is the columbine. One common species of the Eastern United States, Aquilegia canadensis, is of a pure deep scarlet color, as every country boy knows. If we seek for our columbines in the far West we shall miss this familiar type, and find it replaced by another species, A. chrysantha, of a fine clear yellow, or perhaps by its near relative, the A. cœrulea, with its sky-blue corolla, a common species in the region of the Rocky Mountains. Columbines, red, yellow, and blue, are thus to be found in a state of nature, and we thus find other cultivated forms which extend from a pure white through all shades of purple.

The pansy, that protean offspring from lowly "johnny-jumper," occasionally comes very near embracing the entire gamut of color to which its name, Viola tricolor, would seem to entitle it. Blue pansies and yellow pansies we certainly have, but the ruddiest of its rich wine tints, when laid beside the red, red rose, at once confesses its purple, the remnant of blue which it cannot absolutely eliminate.

The blue rose, blue tulip, blue dahlia, and blue carnation have as yet refused to respond to the coaxing arts of the florist, but he has at least succeeded in imposing upon our credulity in a carnation pink of white, streaked with peacock blue. Bouquets of these uncanny-looking blossoms are frequently to be seen in our city flower-booths, but they smack of trickery, and the vendor is rarely seen to look you in the eye as he responds "new variety" to your inquiry as to the peculiar color.

"Are those natural?" I heard a lady ask at a flower-stall recently, referring to these pinks.

"Sure, madam," he replied, this time with easy conscience. "They were picked in the conservatory this morning."

But as he folded the paper carefully about her generous purchase, he didn't trouble her with the details of the subsequent aniline bath to which they were subjected, and of which they bore plain evidence upon close scrutiny.

But if we are to resort to hocus-pocus in the tinting of flowers, there is an artificial method available which leaves this clumsy artifice of the blue-green pinks far behind, and which, withal, affords a very pretty experiment in chemistry, albeit presumably more enjoyed by the operator than the victim.

A gentleman of the writer's acquaintance, while visiting his sister at her country home, noted her fondness for pansies, as indicated by the numerous beds and borders of the flowers there. After expressing his appreciation and surprise at the endless shades of color in the bouquet which she was gathering for the library table, he stooped, and apparently plucked one of the blossoms from a bed.

"Your pansies are certainly the most remarkable that I have ever seen. Here is one which is truly most astonishing in color," he remarked, as he handed the blossom to her.

It was received with an exclamation of amazement, and with eager glances at the neighborhood of the bed from which she presumed it had been taken. "Where did you find it?" exclaimed his sister, in complete demoralization. "Which plant was it on? Why, I never saw such a pansy! It's wonderful! There must be more. I never heard of such a pansy! Do show me where you picked it."

"I got it from this plant here, I think," replied the young man, as soon as he could be heard; and, stooping carelessly, he plucked another, which proved even more of a surprise than the first, so vividly intense was its color.

The first specimen was a dark pansy. The two usually deep purple upper petals now appeared of a deep velvety peacock blue. The remaining three petals were pale emerald-green, bordered with deeper green. In the second blossom the upper pair of petals were now transfigured in vivid emerald-green, the rest of the flower being of paler but almost equally dazzling brilliancy.

The demoralization was more and more complete as another and another of the remarkable blossoms was rescued from its obscurity, always by the accommodating young man, and added to the growing bouquet. Neighbors on right and left were quickly acquainted with the remarkable discovery, and a gathering of excited natives soon assembled in the parlor to view the new floral sensation. The pansy-beds were soon the scene of busy commotion, but in the eager search for the rare blooms fortune seemed still to favor the young man, to the exasperation of several of the bright-eyed young ladies, who, of course, did not happen to know of the young man's occasional sly recourse to a certain tumbler concealed near by.

But the secret soon leaked out, and the victim confessed and did penance. Had he realized what a commotion his innocent prank was destined to create, he would not have yielded to temptation. But his sister was primarily to blame. Why had she placed that bottle so conspicuously upon his wash-stand? He had noted her fondness for pansies, and a minute later had read "Ammonia" on the label of the bottle, and association of ideas and mischief did the rest. In a casual stroll about the pansy-beds he had then gathered a dozen or so of the several varieties and taken them to his room. Laying a piece of crumpled paper in a saucer, he then poured about a teaspoonful of the ammonia upon it, afterwards gently laying the pansies in a pile upon the paper, and thus free from actual contact with the liquid, and covering the whole with a tumbler. In two or three minutes the fumes of the ammoniacal gas had done their work, and lo! when he removed the tumbler his pansies had doffed their blues and purples, and were transfigured in velvets of all imaginable emerald and peacock and mineral greens, though still retaining their perfect shape and petal texture.

To more completely confound the innocent with this experiment, the "operator" should suddenly discover an entire plant with all its flowers thus tinted in emerald—a feat which may be accomplished by submitting the whole plant to similar treatment beneath a bell glass or other air-tight vessel or box, in which case the amount of ammonia used should be proportionately increased. If the concentrated ammonia is employed, a very small quantity will be sufficient.

Flowers thus treated will last in an unaltered condition for several hours, though the treatment is really injurious, even destructive, to the tissues of flower as well as plant.

Various other blossoms respond in their own particular virescent hues to the vapors of ammonia, as the reader will discover upon experiment.

The fumes of sulphur confined beneath a glass, as from a few common, old-fashioned matches, will play all sorts of similar pranks with the colors of petals. A little experimenting in this direction will afford many surprises.

Mr. and Mrs. Tumble-bug

OF all the insects which occasionally claim our attention in our country rambles, there is probably no example more entitled to our distinguished consideration than the plebeian, commonly despised, but admittedly amusing beetle known the country over as the funny "tumble-bug." As we see him now, so he has always been—the same in appearance, the same in habits; yet how has he fallen from grace! how humbled in the eyes of man from that original high estate when, in ancient Egypt, he enjoyed the prestige above all insects—where, as the sacred "scarabæus," he was dignified as the emblem of immortality, and worshipped as a god! The archæological history of Egypt is rich in reminders of his former eminence. Not only do we see his familiar shape (as shown in our initial design) everywhere among those ancient hieroglyphs engraved in the rock or pictured on the crumbling papyrus; but it is especially in association with death and the tomb that his important significance is emphasized. The dark mortuary passages and chambers hewn in solid rock, often hundreds of feet below the surface, where still sleep the mummied remains of an entire ancient people, and which honeycomb the earth beneath the feet of the traveller in certain parts of Egypt, are still eloquent in tribute to the sacred scarab. The lantern of the antiquarian explorer in those dark dungeons of death discloses the suggestive figure of this beetle everywhere engraved in high relief upon the walls, perhaps enlivened with brilliant color still as fresh as when painted three thousand years ago, emblazoned in gold and gorgeous hues upon the sarcophagus and the mummy-case within, and again upon the outer covers of the winding-sheet; finally, in the form of small ornaments the size of nature, beautifully carved on precious stones enclosed within the wrappings of the mummy itself.

What other insect has been thus glorified and immortalized? For the sake of its proud lineage, if nothing else, is not our poor tumble-bug deserving of our more than passing attention? An insect which has thus been distinguished by an entire great people of antiquity has some claims on our respect and consideration.

But aside from his historical fame, he will well repay our careful study, and serve to while away a pleasant hour in the observance of his queer habits. He is now no longer the awe-inspiring sacred scarab, but Mr. Tumble-bug, or, rather, "Mr. and Mrs. Tumble-bug," for a tumble-bug always pictured in the ancient hieroglyph is rarely to be seen in its natural haunts. Mr. and Mrs. Tumble-bug are devoted and inseparable, and, as a rule, vie with each other in the solicitude for that precious rolling ball with which the insects are always associated. From June to autumn we may find our tumble-bugs. There are a number of species included in the group of Scarabæus to which they belong. Two species are particularly familiar, one of a lustrous bronzy hue, with a very rounded back, usually found at work on the country highway in the track of the horse, and the other, the true typical tumble-bug, a flat-backed, jet-black lustrous species which we naturally associate with the barn-yard and cow-pasture. The latter may be taken as an illustrative example of his class, and his ways are identical with those of his ancient sacred congener and present inhabitant of Egypt.

When we first see them they are generally manipulating the ball—a small mass of manure in which an egg has been laid, and which by rolling in the dust has now become round and firmly incrusted and smooth. Let us follow the couple in their apparently aimless though no less expeditious and vehement labors. They have now brought their globular charge through the grassy stubble, and have reached a clear spot of earth with scattered weeds. Of course we all know from the books that their intention is to find a suitable spot in which to bury this ball, and such being the case, with what astonishing stupidity do they urge on that labor! Here certainly is just the right spot for you, Mrs. Tumble-bug! Stop rolling and dig! But no, she will not listen to reason. She mounts the top of the ball, and, creeping far out upon it, pulls it over forward with her back feet, while Mr. Tumble-bug helps her in a most singular fashion. Does he stand up on his hind legs on the opposite side, and push with his powerful front feet? Oh no; he stands on his head, and pushes with his hind legs. As he pushes, and as the ball rolls merrily on, Mrs. Tumble-bug is continually rolled around with it, and must needs climb backward at a lively rate to keep her place. A foot or two is thus travelled without special incident, when a slight trouble occurs. The ball has struck an obstacle which neither Mrs. Tumble-bug's pull nor Mr. Tumble-bug's push can overcome. Then follow an apparent council and interchange of Tumble-bug talk, until at length both put their shovel-shaped heads together beneath the sphere, and over it goes among the weeds. It is soon out again upon the open. Now, Mrs. Tumble-bug, everything is plain-sailing for you; here is a long down grade over the smooth clean dirt! Why, the ball would roll down itself if you would only let it; but, no, she will not let it. She pauses, and the ball rests, and both beetles now creep about, shovelling up the dirt here and there with their very queer little flat heads. Ah, perhaps they are going to start that hole which all the books tell us about. But no; the place is evidently not quite satisfactory, both of them seem so to conclude, like two souls with but a single thought. Mrs. T. is up on the bridge in a jiffy, and Mr. T. takes his place at the helm; and now what an easy time they will have of it down this little slope; but, no, again; tumble-bugs don't seem to care for an easy time. A hundred times on their travels will they pass the very best possible spot for that burrow, a hundred times will they persist in guiding that little world of theirs over an obstruction, when a clear path lies an inch to the right or left of them. And here, when their labors might be so easily lightened by a downward grade, what do they do? they deliberately turn the ball about and hustle it along up hill, and that, too, over dirt that is not half as promising. Tip they go! Mrs. T. now seems to have the best of it, and I sometimes have my suspicions whether she is not playing a prank on that unsuspecting spouse working so hard at her back, for he now has not only the ball, but Mrs. T. as well, to shove along, for the most that she can do is to throw the weight of her body forward, which in a steep up grade amounts to nothing as a help.

But if she is imposing on Mr. T. in thus guiding the ball up hill, she soon gets the Roland for her Oliver. Mr. T. is put to great extra labor by this whimsical decision of hers, and woe to Mrs. T. when that little chance valley or inequality of surface is reached. Even though she can see it coming and holds the wheel, she rarely seems to take advantage of it to save herself or her ship, while Mr. T., going backward in the rear, of course cannot be expected to know what is coming, nor be blamed for the consequences. With kick after kick from his powerful hind feet, united with the push of his mighty pair in front, the ball speeds up the slope. Now, for some reason, he gives a backward shove of more than usual force when it was least necessary. The ball had chanced upon the crest of a slope, when, kick! over it goes with a pitch and a bound, and Mrs. T. with it, though this time not on top. Happy is she if the ball simply rolls upon her and pins her down. Such, indeed, is a frequent episode in her experience of keeping the ball a-rolling, but occasionally the tumble-ball thus started, and out of the control of her spouse at the rear, may roll over and over for a long distance, but never alone. No amount of demoralization of this sort ever surprises her into losing her grip on her precious globular bundle. When at last it fetches up against a stone or stick, and she assures herself that she and her charge are safe and sound, no doubt she immediately mounts to its crest to signal the lone Mr. T. afar off, who is quickly back of her again, and both are promptly off on a fresh journey. And so they keep it up, apparently for sport, perhaps for an hour.

At length, when they have played long enough—for there is no other reason apparent to homo sapiens—they decide to plant their big, dirty pellet. The place which they have chosen is not half as promising as many they have passed, but that doesn't seem to matter. Mrs. T. has said, "It shall go here," and that ends it.

Then follows a most singular exhibition of excavation and burial. The ball is now resting quietly on the dirt, and the two beetles are apparently rummaging around beneath it, trying the ground with the sharp edge of their shovel-shaped faces. And now, to avoid confusion, we will dismiss Mr. T., and confine our observation strictly to the female, who usually (in my experience) conducts the rest of the work alone.

She has evidently found a spot that suits her, and we expect her to fulfil the directions of the books and entomological authorities. She must "dig a deep hole first, and then roll the ball into it, and fill it up again." But we will look in vain for such obedience. Instead of this she persists in ploughing around beneath the ball, which seems at times almost balanced on her back, until all the earth at this point is soft and friable, and she is out of sight under it. Presently she appears again at the surface, and as quickly disappears again, this time going in upsidedown beneath the ball, which she pulls downward with her pair of middle feet, while at the same time, with hind legs and powerful digging front legs, she pushes outward and upward the loose earth which she has accumulated. Visibly the ball sinks into the cavity moment by moment as the earth is lowered for a space of half an inch in the surrounding soil, and continually forced upward outside of its circumference. In a few moments the pellet has sunk level with the ground, and in a few moments more the loose earth pushed upward has overtopped it and it is out of sight. Still, for hours this busy excavator continues to dig her hole and pull the ball in after her, with shovel head and mole-like digging feet scooping out a circular well much larger than the diameter of the ball, which slowly sinks by its own weight, aided by her occasional downward pull, as this same loosened earth is pushed upward above it. The burrow is thus sunk several inches, when the beetle ploughs her way to the surface and is ready for another similar experience.

The remaining history of the ball and its change is soon told. The egg within it soon hatches, the larva finding just a sufficiency of food to carry it to its full growth, when it transforms to a chrysalis, and at length to the tumble-bug like its parent. The formerly loose earth above him is now firmly packed, but he seems to know by instinct why those powerful front feet were given to him, and he is quickly working his way to the surface, and in a day or so is seen in the barn-yard rolling his ball as skilfully as his mother had done before him.

Such is the method always employed by the tumble-bug as I have seen him. And yet I have read in many natural histories, and have heard careful observers claim, that the hole is dug first and the ball rolled in. Perhaps they vary their plan, but I doubt it. Here is a matter for some of our boys and girls to look into.

Those Horse-hair Snakes

So they are called; and if the almost unanimous rustic opinion, with its ancient tradition and reliable witness, is to be credited, such they are in very truth. Indeed, there would seem to be few better attested facts in the whole range of natural history than the pedigree of this white or brown thread-like creature which is found in summer shallows and pools. Go where you will in the rural districts and it is the same old story. "They come from horse-hairs," and in some sections they are destined finally to become full-grown water-adders. It is commonly no mere theory. It is either an indisputable fact, tested by individual observation, or else is accepted as a matter of course, much as Pliny of old accepted the similar natural history "discoveries" of his time. He says, for example, on a similar subject, "I have heard many a man say that the marrow of a man's backbone will breed to a snake. And well it may so be, for surely there be many secrets in nature to us unknown, and much may come of hidden causes."

I have exchanged much comment on the subject of the hair snake with New England farmers. I have heard it claimed by one rural authority that a horse-hair bottled in water and placed in the sun will become a snake at second full moon. One prominent Granger, not to be outdone, went so far as to affirm that an old horse of his fell dead at the edge of the dam, and that the whole animal's tail squirmed off, and the pond was full of hair snakes in consequence. It becomes almost a matter of personal offence to the average countryman to question the truth of these statements. The hair snake is a fact—settled by their forefathers, and more true than ever to-day.

But snake stories, like fish stories, are always to be "taken with salt," and lest some of our younger readers may become converts to the rural authorities with whom they are perhaps associated in the summer outings, and in order also to relieve our long-suffering horse from this outrageous libel on its tail, it is well to settle our horse-hair snake story once and for all. To this end, I doubt if I can do better than to quote from memory a certain village store discussion of which the everlasting hair snake was the topic. I say "discussion," but this was hardly the proper term to apply to a general conversation in which all the parties seemed to agree. For some moments it consisted of anecdotes bearing on the subject, and each of the group had furnished his item of interest supporting the accepted theory of the horse-hair origin of the snake. Only one member of the company remained to be heard from, Amos Shoopegg, the village cobbler, who had kept silent, with somewhat sinister expression on his countenance as he listened with a sort of superior disdain to the various wonderful accounts, until at length, upon the recital of the story of the dead horse in the pond, he could contain himself no longer, and blurted out:

"Well, I swan, I never see sech a lot of dunceheels! I never hear sech fool talk since I's born. They ain't one on ye thet's got enny sense."

"Waal, haow much hev yeu gut?" asked the narrator of the dead-horse story, testily. "Yeu never see a har snake in yer life, and wouldn't know one from a side o' sole-leather er a waxed-end ef it wuz laid in yer lap."

"Not know 'em? I guess not," replied Amos. "I know more about 'em than the hull lot o' ye put together. Not know 'em! Law! hain't I seen 'em flyin' over the meddy by the hundreds in hayin'-time!"

A loud and long-continued guffaw concert greeted this surprising statement, a result which the shrewd cobbler had anticipated.

"We give in," remarked one sarcastic snake expert, when the laughter had subsided. "We give in. We don't enny on us know thet much," followed by another burst of derisive laughter.

"Thet's becuz yeu ornery critters hain't gut no sense," replied Amos, with warmth. "Ye beleve jest wut ennybody tells ye, or jest wut yer gran'ther beleved before ye, ez though yeur gran'ther knowed any more'n a hedge fence jest becuz he hed the misfortoon to be yeur gran'ther. My gran'ther sed so tew. But what on't? He warn't to blame. He didn't know no better. I do. Yeu say them snakes come from hoss-har. Like nuff they ain't one o' ye but b'leeves fer a fac' thet ef yer old har-cloth sofy wuz put to soak it wou'd all squirm off overnight. Ye see these ar har snakes in the hoss-trawf, and thet's enuff fer ye. Immejetly yeu hev yer 'hoss-har snake,' 'n' you're so sot they ain't no livin' with ye."

And so he went on, with occasional exclamatory or chaffing interruptions.

"Oh yis! Yeu know all about 'em, jest becuz ye hed a gran'ther who wuz a dunceheels. Nobody kin teech ye nothin', but I'll tek a leetle o' the conceit out o' ye afore I'm done with ye. Wut I know I know, 'n' wut I say I kin prove. 'N' if none o' yeu idjits hain't seen them har snakes a-flyin' over the meddy ez I sed, then ye don't know nothin' about 'em. I tell ye I've seen 'em 'n' caught 'em!"

"Say, Amos," slyly asked a jibing neighbor at his elbow, "wut did ye hev in the hayin'-pail that day?"

"Waal," drawled Amos, after the momentary laughter had subsided, "wutever it wuz, it 'd do yeu a power o' good ef yeu'd take one long pull on't. It would be a eye-opener fer ye, p'r'aps, 'n' yeu'd larn suthin'. You've ben fed with a spoon all yer life, 'n' ye swaller wutever they give ye without lookin'. Thet's wut ails yeu. Say," he continued, trying to get in a word edgewise in the prevalent hilarious din, "you idjits er havin' a mighty sight o' fun over this 'ere! I'll give ye a chance to show which on ye is the biggest fool. Doos any one o' ye want to bet me that ye ain't a pack o' dunces? Which on ye 'll bet me a scythe that wut I say about these ar flyin' snakes is all poppycut? Come, naow, I'm talkin' bizniss, and if ye ain't a lot o' cowards, p'r'aps you'll prove thet ye ain't. I say them snakes wuz a-flyin' around ez fast ez grasshoppers all over the meddy, 'n' ar flyin' thar naow, like all-possessed, 'n' I kin prove it. Naow who sez I kain't, and will wager me a new scythe on't?"

A momentary lull followed this challenge, but the bet was promptly taken by several of the company, the "dead-horse" story-teller being the first to rise to the bait.

In a moment Amos had left the store, and within a half-hour (barely long enough for him to have reached his home and returned) he reappeared with a box containing the "proofs" of his remarkable statement.

He won his bet, having introduced his sceptical hearers to the two prime authorities that knew more about hair snakes than all the rustic wiseacres or scientific professors put together, for his box was filled with grasshoppers and black crickets, including one or two specimens specially preserved in a small vial of alcohol, to show the parasitic snake coiled in its close spiral.

It is reported that Amos never got his scythe, however, the "dead-horse" story-teller having backed out on a technicality, claiming that Amos could not have seen the snakes, he said, and that the snakes had no wings, and consequently could not have been seen "flying" over the meadow; but the cobbler was at least the means of wiping out the hair-snake superstition in the village, and even to this day he is heard to sing out to the chaffing group at the village store, on occasions when he is crowded a little too far, "Who sed hoss-har snake?" He laughs best who laughs last.

There was nothing in the outward appearance of Amos to indicate an intelligence superior to that of his fellows, the secret of his present victorious position being found in the fact that he had been in the habit of making the most of his "summer boarders." One of these, during the present season, had been a college professor of biology, who had enlightened him on many puzzling matters of natural history, including the mystery of the hair snake, whose horse-hair origin he would once have maintained as stoutly as did his opponents at the village store.

My own early belief was influenced by the prevailing country opinion, and more than one is the horse hair which I have put to soak with interesting anticipation. By a mere accident the true source of the snake was discovered. I had procured a box of grasshoppers and crickets for bait, numbering some hundreds, and once, upon opening it, observed two of the thread-like creatures entangled like a snell among the insects. Further experience while baiting the hooks with the grasshoppers revealed others in the bodies of both crickets and grasshoppers, which seemed in no way disturbed by their presence.

So the "horse-hair snake" may be written down a myth. Its existence prior to the time we discover it in the brook or puddle has been spent under the hospitable roof of the insects mentioned, upon escaping from which it seeks the water to lay its eggs. The young in turn seek the grasshoppers and crickets which frequent their haunt, and thus the routine is continued, to the possible annoyance of the grasshopper and the complete mystification of the rural scientist.

"Professor Wiggler"

HOW potent and abiding are the reminiscences of early youth! It is now some thirty years since I discovered "Professor Wiggler," and noted his peculiar eccentricities. And simply because I chanced first to disclose his wiggling identity on a lilac-bush, how irresistibly must his comical presence assert itself with my slightest thought of lilac, with the shape of its leaf, the faintest whiff of its fragrance, or even a distant glimpse of its spray!

Yonder, for instance, an old ruin of a home closely hemmed in with the well-known bushes spots the wintry landscape. What a place for Wigglers that will be next summer! Only a few days since, while walking down Broadway, New York, I paused for a momentary glimpse of a fine display of spring silks in a shop window, when Professor Wiggler, without the slightest rhyme or reason, suddenly wagged his comical head across my fancy, for my thoughts were far from professors and entomology. Following a frequent, quiet pastime of mine, of tracing the pedigree of such vagrant waifs of thought, I fell to pondering what could have summoned my unbidden friend, and I soon discovered. Why, how simple! The window before me was a very epitome of tender vernal hues—blushes of pale blossoms, yellows of pale anthers shadowed under petals, and quickened grays of bourgeoning hill-side woods, warm pulsing greens of budding leaves, each fabric bearing its label of the latest color-fad—coral gray, Chinese pink, primrose ash, old rose, and yonder was a faded purple bearing the title "lilac," which, of course, by its own irresistible telegraph through my retina, had called up the professor, and here he was.

Yes, it must be admitted, he is a rather unceremonious and promiscuous professor, but I can nevertheless recommend him to our young people as a most amusing and entertaining character. As I have said, I first made his acquaintance over thirty years ago, and in spite of his obtrusive ways in season and out of season, I nevertheless renew our actual acquaintance on the lilac-bush every summer, and I am always greeted with the same expressive "wiggle-waggle." It was in early August when I first discovered him, a small brown and white crook-backed creature about an inch long, clothed with scattered hairs, and clinging to the edge of a leaf, half of which he had eaten to the mid rib. As I approached he ceased eating, and began to wag his upraised head and body vehemently, and I promptly named him Wiggler, subsequently adding the "professor" for special reasons which I do not now recall. Careful search about the bush led to the discovery of a dozen or more of the caterpillars, all about the same size; and such was their novelty among the young insect-collectors that wigglers now became all the rage, and were at a premium on trade. The lilac-bushes of the town were scoured for caterpillars, and there was suddenly a "corner" on wigglers. A Professor Wiggler was now worth two bull's-eyes, and even two classical Polyphemuses, or three Attacus prometheus cocoons were considered only a just and dignified equivalent for a full-grown specimen of the new professor. For those which I had first found proved to be mere infants. As they waxed fat and healthy and lively on their daily supply of fresh lilac leaves, they soon reached the length of quite an inch and a half, and their humps and zigzag outline were proportionately developed, to say nothing of their wiggling propensities.

How well I remember the "whack! whack! whack!" from the inside of the pasteboard or wooden box as I entered the room, or chanced to make the slightest commotion in its neighborhood, as the captive pets threatened to dash their brains out in their demonstrations at my approach. Opening the box, I was always greeted with the same concert of whisking heads, the action being more particularly expressive from the long projecting lash of hairs, an inch and a quarter in length, with which the caterpillar's head was provided. One singular feature of these hairs had always puzzled me in the earlier life of the caterpillar, but was soon explained by close observation. At intervals of every quarter of an inch or so in the length of the slender tuft we find, in perfect specimens, a tiny brown speck—perhaps three or four—graduating in size to the tip of the hairs, where the atom is scarcely visible, or generally absent. A careful examination of their shape revealed the fact that they were exactly like the heads of the younger caterpillars in all their stages, and their presence and successive accumulation were readily explained by the moulting habits of the caterpillar, which is common to all caterpillars. By these telltale tokens we know that the professor has changed his clothes—let us see, one, two, three, four—perhaps five times.

When he first emerged from the egg on the lilac-leaf he was indeed a tiny atom; his head would make a small show laid upon our page. When about a week old, by dint of a good appetite and voracious feeding, he had managed to "outgrow his skin," as it were. He could literally hold no more, and realizing that nature would come to his relief, he began to spin a tiny web upon the leaf-stalk in which to secure his hooked feet for a temporary rest, sleeping off his dinner, as it were.

He is now a very quiet and circumspect young professor. It were indeed a dangerous experiment to wiggle in such a tight suit as now incloses him, so he remains immovable and resigned. A strange process is now going on in his physiology. Hour by hour his outer skin is becoming detached from the under skin, and now he is simply inclosed within its sac. The shell of his former head has been crowded off his face, as it were, and has slid down towards the mouth of the new head within. Shortly after this feature has taken place the imprisoned caterpillar becomes restless to burst his bonds, and a quiet working motion begins, which gradually forces the skin in wrinkles towards the tail of the body, of course drawing it tighter and tighter about the head, and with it the connection from the spiracles at the sides of the body. At last, with one final effort, the skin behind the head ruptures, and discloses the new skin beneath, and through the opening thus made the new head soon appears, and the entire new suit of clothes emerges in a few moments. But though the old clothes are worked off into a little shrunken pellet at the tail, the old head-shell is still retained, being attached to the hairs immediately back of the new head, and thus retained. Five or six times in the life of the caterpillar this same process is performed, each performance leaving its token; so that our "professor" enjoys the unique distinction of being able, in his mature years, to look up to the head he wore when he was a baby or youngster, and make it useful, too, in keeping off the flies as he ponders on the flight of time.

But this is not all our professor's peculiarities. One day, as I came to look at my hump-backed pets, I discovered that most of them had shrunk a full third, and had refused to eat and, what surprised me more, refused to wiggle. A closer examination of the box showed that while they had ignored the lilac leaves, they had been gnawing the pasteboard everywhere in the box, even perforating it with a number of holes. The captives in a thin wooden box were similarly affected, and numbers of holes were to be seen. What did it mean? I had been expecting daily to see my full-grown caterpillars either beginning their cocoons or suspending themselves by their tails in readiness for the chrysalis state. Yet they had done neither. Their time had evidently come, but they were not satisfied with their surroundings, and would seem to wish to escape; and yet, having gnawed their way to liberty, deliberately remained in prison! It was some days before I correctly interpreted their curious contradictory actions, and as I remember it now, my hint came from a spider-web which had spread its catch all beneath a lilac-bush, and upon which I discerned a number of tiny balls of sawdust which had chanced to fall upon it. Looking directly above, among the branches, I soon found a wiggler, not only gnawing the wood but with one-third of its body in a burrow in a twig the size of my finger. I had observed him thus for a few moments when he began to back out, drawing with him a tiny ball of sawdust, which he threw out with a slight wiggle, and soon resumed operations.

Leaving him to his work, I lost no time in taking the hint, and my box was soon criss-crossed with small twigs, and my remaining wigglers soon found themselves at home and littered my box with their chip pellets. The burrow is first made diagonally to the pith, and then follows the centre for about two-thirds of an inch. I remember having about a half-dozen caterpillars thus at work simultaneously. On the morrow, when I opened the box, all signs of caterpillars and burrows had vanished. Though I looked directly upon the spot where yesterday I had surely seen the open tunnel, no vestige of it now appeared, and its whereabouts could only be guessed by the slight rose-colored stain which the caterpillar had left on the bark below. What had happened?

The burrows had been completed in the night, and the caterpillars had retired into them, backward presumably, and then spun over the opening by a disk of silk, which they had finally, or in the process, tinted the exact color of the external surrounding bark. I have frequently exhibited one of these sticks, with its inclosed caterpillar, to curious friends, who were unable to locate, without long and careful scrutiny, the mysterious curtain. The twig, dried in a mild oven so as to kill the inclosed caterpillar, or with its farther side split off for his removal, would serve as an interesting permanent specimen, the delicate disk being otherwise ruptured by the final escape of the moth.

All of mine appeared in the first week of July of the next year. They were small, for the size of the caterpillar, yellowish-white "millers," the fore wings beautifully mottled and banded with brown, and each with three conspicuous round spots of dull red, which feature has secured the insect its specific name of "Trisignata"—Gramatophora trisignata being the name of our professor in learned circles.

His burrowing habits do not seem to be generally known, the only mention of which I have chanced to observe merely alluding to the fact that the "caterpillar has the unusual power of boring very smooth cylindrical holes in solid pine wood." But Professor Wiggler does not bore wood for a pastime, as we have seen.

"Cow-spit, Snake-spit, and Frog-spit"

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."

The "spume-bearer" (Aphrophora) this insect has been called, and the peculiar method by which he turns out the froth on the stem is well worth a little study. He makes no secret of the process. If we take a grass stem, remove him from his liquid lair, and transfer him to another stem, we may witness a novel method in the preparation of suds. And a busy little factory it is, too, when we consider what a continuous demand is made upon it, caused by the sun's evaporation through the long summer day. A single mass of bubbles with its tenant removed quickly disappears. If the little insect is permitted to crawl upon our hand, he is apt to try the new domicile. I have never been able to induce him to continue up to the suds point, but have no trouble in locating the place where he begins operations.

The Paper Wasp & His Doings

FEW of our common insects enjoy a wider intimate acquaintance with or a more respectful recognition from humanity than the wasps and hornets. Their acquaintance, with that of their yellow-jacket bee and bumble-bee relatives, is forced upon most of us at a tender and impressionable age, and leaves a lasting reminiscence. Having once been interviewed by a hornet, do we not remember him for life for his pains?

The bee has perhaps given us equally pointed excuse for respectful, or rather disrespectful, consideration, and yet how different is our attitude to the bee in contrast with that towards the hornet! Why? The discrimination is largely a matter of sentiment, but especially a matter of ignorance; sentiment as associated with fragrant flowers and droning wings and "white-clover honey"—for do we not all know the "busy bee," and how he "gathers honey all the day" for the hive, and thus for humanity and the hot biscuit? There is then a palliative for the busy bee's "hot foot," as Paddy described his first warm contact with the insect. But who ever heard of any one with a good word for the hornet? He is under the ban—an outlaw, the black sheep of the insect fraternity, a source of uneasy suspicion, shunned by valiant man, good for nothing to the boy except to shy stones at from a safe retreat; while to the fair sex, always the signal for precipitate flight, if not hysterical terror.

The popular verdict on the hornet is so well voiced in that famous entomological essay from the pen of Josh Billings that I am tempted to quote it entire and use it for my present text. I am sure the average reader will say "Amen" to every word of it:

"The hornet is a red-hot child ov Nature ov sudden impreshuns and a sharp konklusion. The hornets alwus fites at short range and never argy a case. They settle all ov their disputes bi letting their javelin fly, an' are az certain an' az anxious tew hit az a mule iz. Hornets bild their nest wherever they take a noshun to, an' seldum are asked to move; for what good is it tew murder 99 hornets an' have the one hundred one hit you with his javelin! I kan't tell you just tew a day how long a hornet kan live, but I kno from experience that every bug, be he hornet or somebody else who is mad all the time, an' stings every chance he kan git, generally outlives all ov his nabors."

An artistically constructed paragraph, with a "snapper" at the end of it, or rather a "sharp konklusion" quite consistent with its subject.

"Mad all the time," he says, and "stings every chance he can git," and such would seem to be the unanimous belief. Indeed, the phrase "As mad as a hornet" has passed into a proverb, which presumably dates back to the Aryans, or at least from the scriptural allusion of the providential visitation of hornets, which routed the impious inhabitants of Canaan before the conquering Israelites. The ancient Greeks and Latins are on record in their appreciation of the "warlike hornet," and considered that it came rightly by its valor as an inheritance from the dead war-horse from whose carcass the insects were supposed to be spontaneously generated.

"The warlike horse if buried underground
Shortly a brood of hornets will be found."

writes Ovid. Another author, Cardanus, thought that a dead mule was the more likely source, which recalls the above erudite allusion of hereditary instinct of Billings.

Yes, if time-honored popular prejudice is to be accepted, the hornet is always on the rampage, always spoiling for a fight, always "mad"; and considering how many thousands of them there are abroad, and what opportunity they have of mischief, it is a wonder that poor humanity is able to put its nose out of doors with impunity.

Let us see how far this bad reputation is sustained by the facts. What is this black paper hornet (more properly wasp) doing from morning till night? Buzzing among the flowers, creeping over the bruised apple windfalls in the orchard, whirling and dodging about the window or fence or side of the house, or perhaps darting in our faces as we sit at the open window.

Two episodes which I recall, in which this white-tailed black wasp from the big paper nest was conspicuous, occur to me as I write, and as the two stories, taken together, will show us the true character of the suspect, and what he is up to all day long, I will narrate them.

The first instance is vivid in my memory. It occurred in my boyhood—my boyhood? how many another boy remembers the same incident. That same hot day in August, that same cool, shadowy swimming-hole in the brook, that same gray paper nest on the overhanging branch a few rods up stream? What a tempting target! How the stones flew as, safe up to our necks in water, if need be, we pelted the paper domicile! And now a lucky throw has gone straight to the mark. With a crushing thud the stone has penetrated the side and knocked off a piece of the gray wall, which falls to the stream below, exposing the tiers of paper comb, as a whirling, buzzy maze, like a swarm of bees, enshrouds the mangled house. Ah, what fun! How we laughed at the sport!—for at least ten seconds. Then the tide turned, and how gladly had we possessed the art of the bull-frog, and buried ourselves in the mud until the storm blew over, for the "mad" warlike hornets were upon us. The red-hot child of Nature "was now at short range," and "stinging every chance they could get." "When you see a head hit it," seemed to be the plan of campaign, and of course the heads had to come up once in a while, and erelong were considerably enlarged, principally through inoculation, but let us hope with wisdom as well.

"A mad hornet, and only at a little boyish fun! Look on this picture, and now on this."

I have shown our hornet under exceptional circumstances, when anger may be a positive virtue and a means of grace. Following are some of the every-day capers, which have not helped his reputation, as I observed them on the crowded porch of a summer hotel in the White Mountains several years ago. It was in September, and about twenty guests, mostly ladies and "summer girls," were assembled in a quiet social convention.