500 Chit-chat . 



almost every blade in his garden, wondered where were all 

 the cuckoos that produced it. 



Dov, They call it cuckoo-spit, from its plentiful appearance 

 about the arrival of that bird. 



Vo7i Os. That is reasoning from analogy. 



Dov. And yet I see not why the bird should be given to 

 spitting ,' unless, indeed, he came from America. 



Fon Os. The vulgar, too, not only delight in wonders 

 inexplicable, but have a rabid propensity to pry into futurity. 



Dov. I believe that propensity is far from being confined 

 to the vulgar. 



Von Os. True ; but not in so ridiculous a way : as they 

 prophesy the future price of wheat from the number of lenti- 

 cular knobs (containing the sporules) in the bottom of a cup 

 of the fungus Nidularia. 



Dov. The weather may be foretold with considerable cer- 

 tainty, for a short time, from many hygrometric plants, and 

 the atmospheric influence on animals. 



Von Os. And from Cloudology, by the changing of primary 

 clouds into compound; and these resolving themselves into 

 nimbi, for rain ; or gathering into cumuli, for fair weather. 

 This is like to become a very useful and pleasing science. 



Dov, It is wonders of this kind, and forewarnings of this 

 nature, that natural history offers to the contemplative mind : 

 in the place of superstitious follies, and unavailing predictions, 

 such as the foretelling of luck from the number or chattering 

 of magpies ; and the wonder how red clover changes itself 

 into grass, as many a farmer at this moment believes. 



Von Os. Linnaeus himself was a bit of a prophet ; as, indeed, 

 thus well he might : for experience and observation amount 

 almost to the power of vaticination. In his Academic Amenities 

 he says, " Deus O. M. et Natura nihil frustra creaverit [Qu. 

 creaverint ?]. Posteros tamen tot inventuros fore utilitates 

 ex muscis arguor, quot ex reliquis vegetabilibus." 



Dov. English it, Von Osdat; thou'rt a scholar. 



Von Os. " God and Nature have made nothing in vain. 

 Posterity may discover as much in mosses, as of utiUty in 

 other herbs." 



Dov. And, truly, so they may : one lichen is already used 

 as a blessed medicine in asthma ; and another to thicken milk, 

 as a nutritive posset. And who, enjoying the rich produc- 

 tions of our present state of horticulture, can recur without 

 wonder to the tables of our ancestors ? They knew abso- 

 lutely nothing of vegetables in a culinary sense ; and as for 

 their application in medicine, they had no power unless 

 gathered under planetary influence, " sliver'd in the moon's 

 eclipse." 



