Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/98

 90 this one of preternatural power that he should give up his eyesight in exchange for his tail. He accepted, and the mole goes blind, but with a slim tail, to this day.

In another narrative the mole is a young lady who was too proud to be tolerated. So she wears fine clothes underground, and has no eyes either for her own beauty or that of others.

The fore-paws of a mole cut off and hung around a child's neck are considered an excellent assistance in teething.

The large rock-fish, or striped bass, are found to be unwholesome at certain seasons. This is caused by their bad habit of feeding on the copper-mines under the sea.

There are divers creatures of fabulous or exaggerated attributes about our homes. Thus the "wood-bitch" will attack man, leaping upon him in the spring from some tree. Her bite is fatal. The "ground-dog" keeps close to the earth, but can bark and bite, being a degree less dangerous. Both of these must be salamanders by the description I have of them. So, too, the "scorpion," which is bright coloured, and runs along fence-rails, not having much in common with the diabolical wingless little dragon, which goes elsewhere more properly by the same name. The "sassafras-worm" has a face somewhat like an owl, feeds on the sassafras-tree, and stings severely. The "corn-worm" I suppose to be some large and active grub which devotes itself in like manner to the maize. It is dreaded by workers in the field.

The "fire-tangler" is a caterpillar with a feathery parti-coloured fan-like tail, very handsome and very virulent I have seen its work, which was very effective. The "rearhorse" is the Carolina mantis, one of our oddest insect figures. The "devil's saddle-horse" is an ugly predatory creature, not growing so large as the other, but bearing a mark like a saddle on his back. Ihe "blood-'n-'oven," or "blood-nout," is the deep-voiced green batrachian elsewhere known as "bull-frog." The "bull-bat" is the "night-hawk" of the north, a near cousin of the English goat-sucker. "Chimney-bats" are swifts. The "rain-crow" is the cuckoo, and a weather-prophet.

When it is ebb-tide the slits in a cat's eyes are horizontal; floodtide, vertical.