8o MY STUDIO NEIGHBORS 



occasions I have surprised this same species of 

 wasp industriously engaged in the selection of 

 a suitable flat foundation - stone with which to 

 cover her burrow : her widely extended slender 

 jaws enable her to grasp a pebble nearly a third 

 of an inch in width. • 



In my opening vignette I have indicated two 

 other door-step neighbors which bore my indus- 

 trious wasps company in their arena of one square 

 yard. To the left, surrounding a grass stem, will 

 be seen an object which is unpleasantly familiar 

 to most country folks — that salivary mass vari- 

 ously known by the libellous names of "snake- 

 spit," "cow-spit," " cuckoo -spit," "toad-spit," and 

 "sheep -spit," or the inelegant though expressive 

 substitute of "gobs." The foam -bath pavilion of 

 the " spume - bearer," with his glittering, bubbly 

 domicile of suds, is certainly familiar to most of 

 my readers ; but comparatively few, I find, have 

 cared to investigate the mysterious mass, or to 

 learn the identity of the proprietor of the foamy 

 lavatory. 



The common name of " cow-spit," with the im- 

 plied indignity to our " rural divinity," becomes 

 singularly ludicrous when we observe not only 

 the frequent generous display of the suds sam- 

 ples, thousands upon thousands in a single small 



