Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/259

Rh regard, to the nature of the bristly-looking little fellow, I was told of his protective power of discharging a volley of quills at either a hunter or any four-footed enemy. This interesting fable about our own unaggressive rodent is doubtless an application of a similar exaggeration of earlier origin concerning the African porcupine. No doubt the story arose at the outset from the extreme readiness with which the quills are detached from the skin of their owner, contrasting remarkably as it does with the savage hold which their minute barbs take of the flesh of the incautious meddler in whom they lodge.

A cure for a felon, recommended in central Maine, is to wrap the offending finger in the thin membrane which lines an eggshell. More interesting than this is the south of Ireland conceit that sucking the first egg laid by a black hen will clear the voice and render it musical,

One of the most unique of veterinary remedies is the following sent me from Bradford, Mass.: "If a cow lose her cud, put a live frog down her throat and it will bring back the cud."

In Alabama and Texas a hymenopterous insect, of the family Mutillidæ, which bears a superficial resemblance to a red ant, is locally known by the entirely undeserved name of cow-killer, from the supposed destructive effect of its sting upon cattle.

The dragon-fly is greatly feared by little folks in Maine, as they believe that it often sews together the lips of children, and if the mouth be left open to prevent the sewing of the lips the warning cry, is "Look out, he'll sew up your swallow!" A very cautious little girl, therefore, was accustomed on sight of one of these insects to open wide her mouth, keep her lips far apart, and then cram her fist into her mouth to keep the enemy out of her throat. In parts of Massachusetts the story goes that it is only children who tell lies who are in danger of having their mouths sewed up by the "devil's darning needle," while in New Hampshire and parts of Pennsylvania, the children think that their ears, eyelids, nostrils, and lips must be guarded, or they may be sewed up by the dreaded darning-needle. This graceful and beautifully colored insect has various names besides the well-known one just mentioned. In New Jersey it is often called "spindle"; in the neighborhood of New Orleans, "mosquito-hawk," and very likely this may be a most rational appellation; but it goes without saying that that of "snake-doctor," common in many of the Southern States, is entirely senseless. The negroes and ignorant whites, however, really believe that ailing snakes are attended by these flying "doctors." In Tennessee and Illinois either "snake-doctor" or "snakefeeder" is the popular name, and the latter is the one in general use both among children and adults in Ohio, Indiana, and some other States of the Mississippi basin. When a child in northern