368 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which long ago passed from your list of edibles ? Sassafras-bark, 

 both of twig and root, spice-wood, " slippery-elm," the buds of the 

 linden-tree, the tender shoots from the spruce and larch, all tickle the 

 palate of the boy or girl. Men whose boyhood was passed anywhere 

 in Northern New England may recall how fond they once were of 

 something which was called " sliver," the cambium layer of the white 

 pine. In certain places it is the fashion to chew the leaves of the An- 

 tennaria, " Indian tobacco " in others, thistle-blossoms. Will ever 

 honey taste as sweet as did the dainty droplets taken direct from some 

 unfortunate bumble-bee captured and dismembered by the boy seek- 

 ing what he may devour ? The tubers of the squirrel-corn and root- 

 stocks of the pepper-root are sought after with a diligence deserving 

 of a treasure. The birds are not the only harvesters of the pretty 

 moss known as robin-wheat. 



The -numerous observations, then, of children, regarding the ap- 

 pearances and properties of plants and animals, give them a wide- 

 spread series of premises, chiefly of a practical character, from which 

 to draw inferences. Children are proverbial for asking questions, 

 whose depth is often astonishing. Their eagerness to have their in- 

 quiries answered often leads them to take their own hasty, illogical 

 inferences for correct answers, though they may really be quite ab- 

 surd. Their natural credulity makes it easy for children to accept as 

 a fact any notion once formulated ; hence many of their superstitions 

 may have arisen. Some of these are shared by ignorant people of ma- 

 ture years, who, intellectually speaking, are but children. Beliefs of 

 this mythical nature vary somewhat with locality, but certain of them 

 have become crystallized, as it were, and grown to be common prop- 

 erty, and are as generally accepted by country boys and girls as any 

 theological dogma among their elders. 



The snake-tribe has given rise to an unusually large number of 

 superstitions. Among peoples of every degree of civilization and of 

 all times, from the dawn of history to the present day, some form of 

 serpent-worship has prevailed. This is not improbably due to the air 

 of mystery which attaches to the stealthy movements of the animal, 

 and to the awe-inspiring effect of the bite of poisonous snakes. And, 

 just as serpent-worship prevails most among savages to-day, so among 

 civilized peoples, children, most of all, feel a fearful, superstitious in- 

 terest in all that concerns snakes, and have invented many myths 

 about them. In Central Ohio, when one child kills a snake, the lookers- 

 on universally call out, " Its tail won't die till sundown." This no- 

 tion, I find, is one of wide acceptation, and doubtless arises from the 

 persistent vitality of the muscular contractility of the snake. In 

 Southern Ohio it is now generally believed that a snake will not crawl 

 over ash-wood ; and a man over eighty years of age tells me the same 

 belief was common in Massachusetts when he was a boy, and he thinks 

 it is by no means yet extinct. In certain localities in Massachusetts 



