ANIMAL AND PLANT LORE OF CHILDREN. 373 



one of these busy little fellows, bury him and make a wish, you will 

 certainly "get your wish." I do not know how general is the belief 

 that it is ill-luck to kill a spider or a cricket, but several persons have 

 told me of this. As far as I can learn it is quite universal for children 

 to feel that there is something uncanny about the dragon-fly. The 

 common doubt and fear of the insect is vividly expressed by the 

 child's name, " devil's darning-needle," so generally given it. It is 

 usually thought to possess a poisonous sting, and in some places the 

 belief is held that this winged needle will " sew one's ears together " 

 if opportunity permit. In some localities in New England another 

 superstition, indicated by the common name of the creature, is that 

 there is danger that the earwig will creep into the human ear and eat 

 out one's brains. An equally absurd and ungrounded fancy is that 

 the mole regularly comes out of his burrow every day for a few mo- 

 ments at just twelve o'clock. 



I have found in both Eastern and Western Massachusetts that chil- 

 dren are fond of eating what they call "swamp-apples." This "fruit," 

 upon investigation, turns out to be an excrescence, very frequently 

 occurring on the Azalea, which is caused by the sting of an insect. 

 One young girl told me, after I had ruined her appetite for the wood- 

 land delicacy, of which she had been very fond, that she " had thought 

 it strange that the fruit always appeared on the plant before the flow- 

 ers." " Oak-apples " or " oak-balls," the galls so frequently found on 

 oaks, are also very often believed to be true fruits. 



Many years ago in Northern Ohio I remember that among the wild 

 flowers we children most highly prized, I suppose because compara- 

 tively rare, was one of the orchids, probably the putty-root (Aplec- 

 trum hyemale), which we called "Adam and Eve." Whenever this 

 beautiful plant was found, the children at once began to look about 

 for "the devil," as they called a third leaf, which frequently was 

 found near by, and which was probably a new plantlet sent up by the 

 creeping root-stock beyond the older portion of the plant. 



I do not know how general is the very queer notion that an apple- 

 sprout, planted upside-down, will produce a tree that will bear apples 

 without any core. 



In various parts of New England, when roast goose is served for 

 dinner during the autumn or early winter, the children are eager to 

 examine the breast-bone to see what sort of a season is foretold. If 

 the bone be mostly dark, it is said to signify a rainy winter ; but if the 

 bone be mainly white or light-colored, then much snow is to be ex- 

 pected. Another New England superstition concerning geese is that 

 wild ones in their changes of position while on the wing form the 

 various letters of the alphabet. 



As a remedy for the disease prevalent among young chickens, com- 

 monly known as "the gapes," children, as well as grown-up people, in 

 some parts of the West, remove the little scale that is found on the 



