FROTH-SPIT, or CUCKOW-SPIT, a name given to a white froth, or spume, very common, in the spring and first months of the summer, on the leaves of certain plants, particularly on those of the common white field lychis or catch-fly, thence called by some spatling poppy.
All writers on vegetables have taken notice of this froth, though few have understood the cause or origin of it till of late; being formed by a little leaping animal, called by some the flea-grass-hopper, by applying its anus close to the leaf, and discharging thereon a small drop of a white viscous fluid, which containing some air in it, is soon elevated into a small bubble: before this is well formed, it deposits such another drop, and so on, till it is every way overwhelmed with a quantity of these bubbles, which form the white froth which we see.