Cicada spumaria L. on almost every blade in his garden, wondered where
were all the cuckoos that produced it.

_Dov._ They call it cuckoo-spit, from its plentiful appearance about the
arrival of that bird.

_Von Os._ That is reasoning from analogy.

_Dov._ And yet I see not why the bird should be given to spitting;
unless, indeed, he came from America.

_Von Os._ The vulgar, too, not only delight in wonders inexplicable, but
have a rabid propensity to pry into futurity.

_Dov._ I believe that propensity is far from being confined to the
vulgar.

_Von Os._ True; but not in so ridiculous a way: as they prophesy the
future price of wheat from the number of lenticular knobs (containing
the sporules) in the bottom of a cup of the fungus Nidularia.

_Dov._ The weather may be foretold with considerable certainty, for a
short time, from many hygrometric plants, and the atmospheric influence
on animals.

_Von Os._ And from _Cloudology_, by the changing of primary clouds into
compound; and these resolving themselves into nimbi, for rain; or
gathering into cumuli, for fair weather. This is like to become a very
useful and pleasing science.