ming: they always hum as they are descending. Is not their hum ventriloquous, like that of the turkey? Some suspect it is made by their wings.*

This morning I saw the golden-crowned wren, whose crown glitters like burnished gold. It often hangs like a titmouse, with its back downwards.

Yours, &c. &c.

LETTER XVII. To T. PENNANT, Esq.

DEAR SIR,

Selborne, June 18, 1768.

On Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter of June the 10th. It gives me great satisfaction to find that you pursue these studies still with such vigour, and are in such forwardness with regard to reptiles and fishes.

The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with so well as I could wish, with regard to their natural history. There is a degree of dubiousness and obscurity attending the propagation of this class of animals, something analagous to that of the cryptogamia in the sexual system of plants; and the case is the same with regard to some of the fishes; as the eel, &c.t

The method in which toads procreate and bring forth seems to be very much in the dark. Some authors say that they are viviparous and yet Ray classes them among his oviparous animals; and is silent with regard to the manner of their bringing forth. Perhaps they may be ἕσω μὲν ὠοτόκοι, ἔξω δε ζωοτόκοι, as is known to be the case with the viper.t

The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it; for Swammer

Toad.

tive proportions. The females and young of the two European redstarts are extremely alike, but of these one is excessively rare in this country, and was unknown to the author. The black redstart can only just be considered a British bird.-ED.

There is every reason to think this is the true cause.-ED.

+ It was reserved for Mr. Yarrell to demonstrate the mode of propagation of the eels (anguilla), and to show, in the most satisfactory manner, that they deposit their spawn like other fishes. For a most interesting and minute detail of his investigations on the subject, see a memoir, by that gentleman, in the form of a letter, published in the second series of Mr. Jesse's "Gleanings in Natural History," where this very long disputed question is at length completely set at rest.-ED.

t Of our three species of ophidian reptiles, the common, or ringed snake (nutrix torquatus)

:

dam proves that the male has no penis intrans) is notorious to every body because we see them sticking upon each others backs for a month together in the spring and yet I never saw, or read, of toads being observed in the same situation. It is strange that the matter with regard to the venom of toads has not been yet settled.* That they are not noxious to some animals is plain: for ducks, buzzards, owls, stone curlews, and snakes, eat them, to my knowledge, with impunity. And I well remember the time, but was not eye-witness to the fact (though numbers of persons were) when a quack, at this village, ate a toad to make the country people stare; afterwards he drank oil.

I have been informed also, from undoubted authority, that some ladies (ladies you will say of peculiar taste) took a fancy to a toad, which they nourished summer after summer, for many years, till he grew to a monstrous size, with the maggots which turn to flesh-flies. The reptile used to come forth every evening from a hole under the garden-steps; and was taken up, after supper, on the table to be fed. But at last a tame raven, kenning him as he put forth his head, gave him such a severe stroke with his horny beak as put out one eye. After this accident the creature languished for some time and died.

I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive reading of the excellent account there is from Mr. Derham, in Ray's Wisdom of God in the Creation, concerning the migration of frogs

is oviparous, depositing its eggs in dung-hills and hot-beds, or in hedge-banks, where the requi sites of heat and a certain degree of moisture are combined. The viper, or adder (vipera vul garis) is ovo-viviparous; and the brittling, "blind-worm," or "slow-worm” (anguis fragilis), is the same, the eggs of both the latter being hatched within the body of the parent. Toads procreate in exactly the same manner as frogs, the fertilization of the ova taking place subsequent to their extrusion from the body, as is the case with fishes. Their spawn is generally deposited in similar situations to that of frogs, but may sometimes be found in puddles left by the rain. The ovales are much smaller, and occur in long necklace-like catenations, those of frogs being in irregular masses. Several of our more eminent naturalists agree in separating from the subclass reptilia, those genera which, like the frogs, toads, and salamanders, propagate by spawn deposited in water, bringing them together as a distinct sub-class, amphibia, and restricting the reptiles to those which are produced from eggs brought to maturity either within the body, or by the heat of the sun, or of fermentation. All the true reptiles commence their existence upon land, even the sea turtles resorting to the shores to breed; while the whole of the amphibia, on the other hand, even those which live most upon land, are bred in the water, and at least for a period of their lives (some always) respire through the medium of gills.-ED.

A slightly acrid secretion is said to exude from the pores of the skin of toads, sufficiently caustic to irritate a wound; but even this I am doubtful of, as the animal is usually very dry. They are not otherwise venomous. It may be here mentioned that a second species, the natterjack toad (bufo calamita), exists in many parts of England, and particularly on the heaths around London. Its general aspect is very like that of the common one, but it may easily be distinguished by having a yellow line along the back; its habits, also, are more active, and it does not leap, its pace being a sort of shuffling run. A third species is suspected to exist in Ireland.-ED.

from their breeding ponds. In this account he at once subverts that foolish opinion of their

dropping from the clouds in rain ; showing that it is from the grateful coolness and moisture of those showers that they are tempted to set out on their travels, which they defer till those fall.* Frogs are as yet in their tadpole state; but, in a few weeks, our lanes, paths, and fields, will swarm for a few days with myriads of those emigrants, no larger than my little finger nail. Swammerdam gives a most accurate account of the method and situation in which the male impregnates the spawn of the female. How wonderful is the economy of Providence with regard to the limbs of so vile a reptile! While it is an aquatic it has a fish-like tail, and no legs: as soon as the legs sprout, the tail drops off as useless, and the animal betakes itself to the land!

Merret, I trust, is widely mistaken when he advances that the rana arborea is an English reptile; it abounds in Germany and Switzerland.+

It is to be remembered that the salamandra aquatica of Ray (the water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at the angler's bait, and is often caught on his hook. I used to take it for granted that the salamandra aquatica was hatched, lived, and died, in the water. But John Ellis, Esq., F. R. S. (the coralline Ellis) as

There are many well-authenticated instances of the actual fact, however strange as it may seem, of tadpoles, and small frogs, and the young fry of fishes being precipitated in considerable numbers from above, and some of them, too, in situations considerably distant from any place where they could have been bred. Mr. Loudon records one in the Magazine of Natural History, vol. ii., p. 103. "When at Rouen," he relates, "in September, 1828, I was assured by an English family, resident there, that, during a heavy thunder shower, accompanied by violent wind, and almost midnight darkness, an innumerable multitude of young frogs fell on and around the house. The roof, the window-sills, and the gravel walks were covered with them. They were very small, but perfectly formed; all dead. The most obvious way," he continues, " of accounting for this phenomenon is by supposing the water and frogs of some adjacent ponds to have been taken up by wind in a sort of whirl or tornado." The following is from a number of the Belfast Chronicle: "As two gentlemen were sitting conversing on a causey pillar, near Bushmills, they were very much surprised by the occurrence of a heavy shower of frogs, half formed, falling in all directions, some of which have been preserved in spirits, and are now exhibited to the curious by the two resident apothecaries in Bushmills." Capt. Brown relates an instance of a shower of young herrings falling in Kinross-shire, many of which were picked up in the fields around Loch Leven by persons of his acquaintance. Numerous other similar cases are recorded in different numbers of the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.-ED.

+ This beautiful little species is not British, though it occurs in Normandy. It pertains to the genus hyla. Another member of the genus rana, however, or true frog, has been discovered in Forfarshire by Mr. Don, and since near Edinburgh by Dr. Stark. It has been supposed by some to be identical with the R. esculenta, or edible frog of the continent, a species very common in the south of Europe. "That they are not," observes the Rev. L. Jenyns, " simple varieties of

serts, in a letter to the Royal Society, dated June the 5th, 1766, in his account of the mud inguana, an amphibious bipes from South Carolina, that the water-eft, or newt, is only the larva

Tadpoles.

of the land-eft, as tadpoles are of frogs. Lest I should be suspected to misunderstand his meaning, I shall give it in his own words. Speaking of the opercula or coverings to the gills of the mud inguana, he proceeds to say that “ the form of these pennated coverings approach very near to what I have some time ago observed in the larva or aquatic state of our English lacerta, known by the name of eft, or newt;* which serve them for coverings to their gills, and for fins to swim with while in this state; and which they lose, as well as the fins of their tails, when they change their state and become land animals, as I have observed, by keeping them alive for some time myself."+

the R. temporaria" (the common kind) "is probable from the circumstance of Dr. Stark's having observed osteological differences between them and the species just alluded to. But," he continues, "I think it remains to be shown that they are really the R. esculenta." The edible frog is larger than the common species, of an olive-green colour, spotted with black. It has three longitudinal streaks of yellow down the back; under parts yellowish.-ED.

These curious creatures, very commonly known when upon land by the term eft, and in the water by that of newt,† do not permanently reside in either element, as I shall presently show. They constitute the modern genus triton, and are not to be confounded with the saurian, or lizard tribe, which in shape they resemble, but from which they essentially differ. They are not rep

tiles, as that appellation is now judiciously limited (all of which produce upon land, and are more or less covered with scales), but pertain to the newly-established equivalent sub-class amphibia, propagating by spawn, which is vivified subsequently to its extrusion, and which (at least in our native species) is deposited near the surface on aquatic herbage, in long catenated strings. They belong to the family salamandrida, which, together with the ranidæ (comprising the frogs and toads), is arranged in the first order, or primary division of the sub-class caducibranchia, or those with deciduous gills, that exist for a certain period in a tadpole or larva state, and cast several successive skins before assuming the adult appearance, breathing during the first stage of their existence by means of gills, and afterwards by lungs. It is stated that they do not propagate till the third year. They are harmless, inoffensive animals, as indeed are all the members of this sub-class ; and, although some of them may not, perhaps, come exactly up to our notions of beauty and seemiiness, there is nothing in them to merit our disgust, nor to excite our hatred and abhorrence, nought whatever to extenuate the senseless persecution with which they are too generally assailed by the vulgar. Neither these nor a single member of the lizard tribe are at all venom. By many the term eft is applied to the T. palustris, and newt to the T. punctatus.—ED.

Linnæus, in his Systema Naturæ, hints at what Mr. Ellis advances more than once.

ous; and it is a discredit to the present age of pretended general enlightenment that such a remark should be deemed necessary.

There are at least three British species, two of which are well known and widely distributed; the third (T. vittatus) having only recently been distinguished, and, as yet, being only known to occur near London; the other two are extremely common, I believe, throughout the country, being everywhere found abundantly in ditches, ponds, and other stagnent waters, from the commencement of winter to the close of summer. In winter they lie buried in the soft mud, or under the subaqueous masses of decaying leaves, but crawl forth from their retreats in mild weather, when it will be seen that their membranous appendages are then fully developed, these not being (as is at present the common opinion among naturalists) observable in the summer months only, though they probably breed very early in mild seasons. They are sluggish and inactive creatures, but voracious, and, as Mr. White observes," will frequently bite at the angler's bait, and are often caught on the hook," the smooth skinned kind being rather more lively in their habits, and fond of swimming in the sunshine, while the T. palustris lies usually almost motionless upon the mud at a slight depth, and seldom rises to the surface except to breathe. After producing, they mostly (I believe all the adults) quit the water, at which time their membranous ornaments disappear, and, as is remarked by White (p. 62), "people every summer see numbers crawling out of the pools where they are hatched, upon the dry banks," a habic apparently necessary for their dispersion. They then move about chiefly by night, when the dew is on the grass (the heavy dews of autumn particularly favouring their habits), or by day in moist weather, or in shady and damp situations, retiring when the ground is dry into holes and crevices, and not unfrequently finding their way into pits and cellars, whence there is no outlet for them, and where, accordingly, many are obliged to pass the winter, from being unable to regain their native element. They do not acquire their ornamental membranes upon land, and such are probably incapable of propagation. I have now before me (February) several live specimens of T. palustris and 7. punctatus from a neighbouring pond, all of which have these appendages developed, while others of the former species just brought me from a saw-pit, exhibit no sign of them whatever. I shall subjoin rather a detailed account of the distinctive characters of our three known species, not only to enable the reader to identify them with facility, but also in the hope of inducing some who may be curious on the subject to investigate those kinds which may occur in their vicinity, in which case I think it highly probable that some additional sorts will be discovered.

The warty newt (T. palustris) is considerably the largest, varying, when full grown, from four to six inches in length, seldom more. It has rather an uncouth and far from prepossessing appearance, with a flat head, and snout obtuse and rounded; skin rough, and on the upper parts dark olive, spotted with black, everywhere studded with small tubercles, which, on the sides, throat, and under part of the legs, are white, and which, in fact, are glandular vesicles, from whence exudes a peculiar and rather fetid secretion, which serves when upon land to keep the creature always moist and clammy; under parts bright orange-yellow, with irregular large spots of black, which in general are more or less confluent. In the male, the abdomen is rather shorter, compared with the entire length, than in the other sex; the hind feet are somewhat larger and stronger; and the back, during the period it annually remains in the water, is ornamented with an elevated membranous crest, commencing between the eyes, and running longitudinally down the mesial line to near the tail, which last is also furnished with a similar but separate membrane along its upper and under edges, causing it to appear at the base as broad as the body, both membranes, but more particularly the dorsal, being deeply jagged and serrated. In the female there is only a slight dorsal ridge occupying the place of the membrane in the other sex. I have said that these appendages entirely disappear after the breeding season.

The spotted newt (T. punctatus-maculosus would be better) measures, when grown, from three to four inches, being at once distinguishable from the last by its much smaller size, and smooth, soft skin. The body is proportionably shorter, and the tail, relatively, rather longer, and ending in a sharper point. The dorsal crest of the male commences at the back of the head, and is continuous to the end of the tail, not deeply jagged, as in the last species, but uniformly festooned, or crenate, throughout its whole length; that under the tail is smooth and even, as is also that on the upper part of the tail in the female, which latter has hardly a trace of membrane along the back. The hind toes also of the male are broadly fringed with dilated membranes. Colours very variable, olivaceous on the upper parts, and yellowish beneath, passing into bright