they descended to the floor, they soon became lank and emaciated. In the evening, they seldom failed to go into the water, unless the weather was cold and damp; in which case, they would sometimes remain out for a couple of days. When they were out of the water, if a few drops were thrown upon the board, they always applied their bodies as close to it as they could; and, from this absorption through the skin, though they were flaccid before, they soon again appeared plump. A Tree-Frog that had not been in water during the night, was weighed, and then immersed; after it had remained about half an hour in the bowl it came out, and was found to have absorbed nearly half its own weight of water. From other experiments on the Tree-Frogs, it was discovered, that they frequently absorbed nearly their whole weight of water, and that, as was clearly proved, and is very remarkable, by the under surface only of the body. They will even ab sorb moisture from wetted blotting paper. Sometimes they throw out water with considerable force from their bodies, to the quantity of a fourth part or more of their own weight.

Both Frogs and Toads will frequently suffer their natural food to remain before them untouched, yet on the smallest motion it makes, they instantly seize it A knowledge of this circumstance, enabled Dr. Townson to feed his favourite Tree-Frog, Musidora, through the

winter. Before the flies, which were her usual food, had disappeared in autumn, he collected for her a great quantity, as winter provision. When he laid any of them before her, she took no notice of them; but the moment he moved them with his breath, she sprung upon and ate them. Once, when flies were scarce, the Doctor cut some flesh of a tortoise into small pieces, and moved them by the same means. She seized them, but the instant afterwards rejected them from her tongue. After he had obtained her confidence, she ate from his fingers, dead as well as living flies.-Frogs will leap at a moving shadow of any small object; and both Frogs and Toads will soon become sufficiently familiar to sit on the hand, and be carried from one side of the room to the other, in order to catch flies as they settle on the wall.-At Gottingen, Dr. Townson made them his guards for keeping these troublesome creatures from his desert of fruit, and they acquitted themselves to his satisfaction. He has even seen the small Tree-Frogs eat humble bees, but this was never done without some contest: they are, in general, obliged to reject them, being incommoded by their stings and hairy roughness; but, in each attempt, the bee is further covered with the viscid matter from the Frog's tongue, and when sufficiently coated with this, it is easily swallowed.

A Trec Frog was kept by a surgeon in Germany, for nearly eight years. He had it in a

glass vessel covered with a net, and during the summer he fed it with flies; but in winter, it probably did not eat at all, as only a few in. sects, with grass and moistened hay, were put to it. During this season it was lean and emaciated; but in summer, when its favourite food could be had in plenty, it soon again became fat. In the eighth winter, it pined away by degrees, as was supposed, on account of no insects whatever being to be had.

As Captain Stedman was sailing up one of the rivers of Surinam, in a canoe, one of the officers who was with him, observed, on the top of a mangrove trec, a battle between a Snake and a Tree-Frog. When the captain first perceived them, the head and shoulders of the Frog were in the jaws of the Snake, which was about the size of a large kitchen poker. This creature had its tail twisted round a tough limb of the mangrove; whilst the Frog, which appeared about the size of a man's fist, had laid hold of a twig with its hind-feet. In this position they were contending, the one for life, the other for his prey, forming one straight line between the two branches: and thus they continued for some time, apparently stationary, and without a struggle. Still it was hoped that the poor Frog might extricate himself by his exertions but the reverse was the case. The jaws of the snake gradually relaxing, and by their elasticity forming an incredibly large orifice, the body

C

and fore-legs of the Frog, by little and little. disappeared, till finally nothing more was seen than the hinder feet and claws, which were at last disengaged from the twig, and the poor creature was swallowed whole, by suction, down the throat of his formidable adversary. He passed some inches down the alimentary canal, and at last stuck, forming a knob or knot, at least six times as thick as the snake, whose jaws and throat immediately contracted, and resumed their former natural shape The snake being out of reach of musket shot, they could not kill him in order to make further examination, but left him, continuing in the same attitude, motionless, and twisted round the branch.

This Frog is a native of various parts of America; of France, Germany, Italy, and many other European countries, but is not found in Great Britain, or Ireland.

THE TOAD.

As the Toad bears a general resemblance of figure to the frog, so also it resembles that animal in its nature and appetites. Like the frog, the Toad is amphibious; like that animal, it lives upon worms and insects, which it seizes by darting out its length of tongue; and in the same manner, also, it crawls about in moist, weather. It is not an animal found in Ireland.

In some countries, as at Carthagena, and Porto Bello in America, Toads are so extremely numerous, that, in rainy weather, not only all the marshy ground, but the gardens, courts, and streets, are almost covered with them; so much so, that many of the inhabitants absurdly believe, that every drop of rain is converted into a Toad. In these countries, this animal is of considerable size, the smallest individuals measuring at least six inches in length. If it happen to rain during the night, all the Toads quit their hiding places, and then crawl about in such inconceivable numbers, as almost literally to touch each other, and to hide the surface of the earth: on such occasions it is impossible to stir out of doors without trampling them underfoot at every step.

The female Toads deposit their spawn earlyin the spring, in the form of necklace-like chains or strings of beautifully transparent glue, three,