My own early belief was influenced by the prevailing country opinion, and more than one is the horse hair which I have put to soak with interesting anticipation. By a mere accident the true source of the snake was discovered. I had procured a box of grasshoppers and crickets for bait, numbering some hundreds, and once, upon opening it, observed two of the thread-like creatures entangled like a snell among the insects. Further experience while baiting the hooks with the grasshoppers revealed others in the bodies of both crickets and grasshoppers, which seemed in no way disturbed by their presence. So the "horse-hair snake" may be written down a myth. Its existence prior to the time we discover it in the brook or puddle has been spent under the hospitable roof of the insects mentioned, upon escaping from which it seeks the water to lay its eggs. The young in turn seek the grasshoppers and crickets which frequent their haunt, and thus the routine is continued, to the possible annoyance of the grasshopper and the complete mystification of the rural scientist. "Professor Wiggler" How potent and abiding are the reminiscences of early youth! It is now some thirty years since I discovered "Professor Wiggler," and noted his peculiar eccentricities. And simply because I chanced first to disclose his wiggling identity on a lilac-bush, how irresistibly must his comical presence assert itself with my slightest thought of lilac, with the shape of its leaf, the faintest whiff of its fragrance, or even a distant glimpse of its spray! Yonder, for instance, an old ruin of a home closely hemmed in with the well-known bushes spots the wintry landscape. What a place for Wigglers that will be next summer! Only a few days since, while walking down Broadway, New York, I paused for a momentary glimpse of a fine display of spring silks in a shop window, when Professor Wiggler, without the slightest rhyme or reason, suddenly wagged his comical head across my fancy, for my thoughts were far from professors and entomology. Following a frequent, quiet pastime of mine, of tracing the pedigree of such vagrant waifs of thought, I fell to pondering what could have summoned my unbidden friend, and I soon discovered. Why, how simple! The window before me was a very epitome of tender vernal hues--blushes of pale blossoms, yellows of pale anthers shadowed under petals, and quickened grays of bourgeoning hill-side woods, warm pulsing greens of budding leaves, each fabric bearing its label of the latest color-fad--coral gray, Chinese pink, primrose ash, old rose, and yonder was a faded purple bearing the title "lilac," which, of course, by its own irresistible telegraph through my retina, had called up the professor, and here he was.