656 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



would testify less confidently if tliey knew that all their state- 

 ments were to be properly reviewed ; science itself would be more 

 fairly represented, public interests would be subserved, and char- 

 latanry would be the only sufferer. 



♦»» 



ANIMAL AND PLANT LORE. 



By Mrs. FANNY D. BEEGEN. 

 II. 



BEFORE narrating any further natural history superstitions, 

 I wish cordially to thank, one and all, the many readers who 

 have so kindly written, now to express an interested recognition 

 of some belief of their own childhood, and again to send other 

 superstitions from different localities. Such of these fancies as 

 had not already been collected for the present article I gladly in- 

 sert. The beliefs here mentioned consist more largely than did 

 those described in a previous paper * of such as are shared alike by 

 children and adults. 



One correspondent expressed strong doubt as to whether chil- 

 dren manifested much originality in their mythical conclusions, 

 thinking that the latter were almost always exaggerated or gro- 

 tesque distortions of ideas which they had gathered from their 

 elders, often from their nurses. Recognizing the full power of 

 these influences, I must still give the children credit for originat- 

 ing many of the strange notions under consideration. I can not 

 better illustrate this ability of children to form original conclu- 

 sions, however incorrect, than by quoting from another corre- 

 spondent, a physician, who says : 



" I think I could not have been more than four years old when 

 I began to question myself as to where I came from, and why I 

 was not a boy — for my father, like Mr. Dombey, wanted a son 

 for the ' house ' — and from my earliest remembrance I have had it 

 impressed upon me that girls were worse than useless things, and 

 that to be somethiilg that would grow up into a man was ' a con- 

 summation devoutly to be wished.' I wondered what was the dif- 

 ference (and it was a very great difference) between my father 

 and my mother. * Surely,' I thought, ' there is no greater differ- 

 erence between my dog and cat, between the horse and cow,' and I 

 reasoned, therefore, that the dog must be the male of the cat, the 

 horse of the cow, the turkey of the hen, and so on. I shall never 

 forget with what complacency I decided in my own mind this 

 great question, nor how reluctant I was to discard it, even when a 



* See " The Popular Science Monthly " for July, 1886. 



