372 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hoped-for victim. In another part of the same State the required 



call was 



" Jack, Jack, come up the world ! 

 Bread and butter, bread and butter," etc. 



I've rarely seen on canvas so interesting a genre picture as a tab- 

 leau vivant one may often see, in Western farming districts, a child 

 standing in the burning summer sun, holding securely with one hand 

 a grasshopper, while he earnestly repeats 



" Spit, spit tobacco-juice ! 

 Spit, spit tobacco-juice ! " 



and the established rule of the children is to detain the queer, awk- 

 ward little captive until as a ransom he " spits," when he is to go free. 

 In New England these lines to the grasshopper are 



11 Grasshopper, grasshopper gray, 

 Give me some molasses, 

 Or I'll cut off your head 

 And throw you away ! " 



I suppose every one knows the familiar call to the lady-bug when- 

 ever one is seen by a child 



"Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home, 

 Your house is on fire and your children will burn! " 



I have wondered if this is merely a putting into words the idea of 

 flame which is suddenly suggested by the sight of one of these beauti- 

 fully colored beetles. What child can resist pulling a seed-dandelion 

 and blowing the feathered head, " to see if my mother wants me to go 

 home " ? And plenty of children believe that holding a buttercup 

 under the chin really indicates whether one likes butter or not. Many 

 a little country girl thinks that the color of her next new dress is fore- 

 told by the color of the first butterfly she sees in the spring. In some 

 places in Western States there is a superstition that, if you make a wish 

 the first time you see a new-born calf, your wish " will come true." 



One of the queerest myths regarding animals I learned from a na- 

 tive of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The boys there, fifty or sixty 

 years ago, were quite certain that, if a live coal were put on a turtle's 

 back, the animal would come out of his shell and crawl away, leaving 

 the latter behind him ! 



In some parts of Eastern Massachusetts if the children see a " daddy- 

 long-legs," they exclaim, " Don't kill him, or it'll rain to-morrow ! " In 

 the same localities there is great faith in the good fortune brought by 

 the capture of what they call " lucky-bugs " the common whirligigs 

 ( Gyrinidce), insects of an oval shape and blue-black color, which may 

 be seen in swarms whirling ceaselessly about with a sort of waving 

 motion on our ponds and streams. The notion is that if you can catch 



