Its name, I find, varies in different localities, but all, for obvious reasons, have the same salivary significance. In various parts of New England, for instance, it is known as cow-spit. In the southern States the snake is held responsible for it, as is shown in the popular name of snake-spit. I have frequently heard it called frog-spit, cuckoo-spit, toad-spit, and sheep-spit, and doubtless many other local terms of the same sort may be found. The cow-spittle theory, however, seems to have the greatest number of converts. Let me, at least, hasten to expose this miserable slander on "our rural divinity." Have, then, our cows nothing better to do than to go expectorating all over the meadows, road-sides, and hay-fields? And how busy, indeed, they must have been to so thoroughly cover the ground, to say nothing of their surprising aim, every glistening cluster of bubbles being landed not helter-skelter on the leaves and flowers, but only on the main stems of the various plants upon which they are found! Even in this little field outside my studio window, 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 higher 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 People' 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 rewarded 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, perfectly white, surrounding a small speckled beetle (I suppose). I found several on my chrysanthemums about two weeks ago, but they seem to have disappeared now." This supposed "small speckled beetle" lets out the secret of our "cow-spittle." The old cow is acquitted, and also the snake, who has enough mischief to answer for.