" COW-SPIT, SNAKE-SPIT, AND FROG-SPIT " 85 
which is thus generously moistened, what a task ! 
Why, it would certainly have taken at least ten 
cows in industrious expectoration to have left it so 
profusely decorated as now ; but the fact is, there 
is not, nor has there been, a single cow in the field. 
Only a few weeks ago I received a letter from 
an Ohio boy who, among other things, wanted to 
know what those slimy " gobs " on alders came 
from. He said they called them "snake -spit" 
out there, but that he had seen lots of them high- 
er than any snake could get, unless it was a 
" racer," meaning the blacksnake, which, as is well 
known, is fond of climbing trees and bushes. 
And later came a letter from a lady in Lewiston, 
North Carolina, who had looked deeper into the 
matter, and whose inquiry throws a little light on 
the subject. She writes as follows : 
" An old subscriber to ' Harper's Young Peo- 
ple ' desires to express the pleasure which your 
articles have afforded. ... I have just finished the 
last, and have been out to examine the faded 
primroses, but only a long-legged green spider re- 
warded my search. Too late for our season." 
The readers of " Young People " will recall my 
article about the beautiful rosy moth which lives 
in the faded evening primrose, and which was the 
quest of the above writer, who further continues : 
" I do not think you have written about what is 
called here ' snake's - spittle,' a frothy exudation, 
