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

their case as in frogs, pure limpid water. The skin, however, has been ascertained by Dr. Davy to secrete an acid liquid, not perhaps poisonous, but capable of producing an uncomfortable sensation on the tongue; a secretion of somewhat similar qualities is poured out on the surface of the common land salamander of Europe.

"The aqueous fluid above-mentioned, which is thrown out in considerable quantities by a frog or toad on being taken in the hand, is held in a double bladder which opens into the cloaca ; and this fact is connected with the absorbing power of the skin. The cutaneous surface of these animals is now known to serve the purposes of respiration; but, in order to perform this function, it is necessary that it should be kept constantly in a moist condition. When placed in water, or in a sufficiently damp situation, the surface of the body absorbs a considerable quantity of water, which is conveyed to the receptacle above-mentioned, there to remain as in a reservoir for future use; and if the animal be exposed to a dry atmosphere, the fluid is re-absorbed, and again secreted on the surface of the skin, in order to keep up its respiratory function. This is the true history of the poisonous liquid of toads, as it is considered, which renders them the objects of dread and hatred to the ignorant of all parts of the country."BELL.

F

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 (p. 365), concerning the migration of frogs 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

* Fabulous as this opinion has always been considered by scientific naturalists, and without vouching for the truth of all that has been adduced in support of it,-it may yet be stated, that so many instances are on record, in some of the foreign journals, of showers of frogs and toads having occurred in different places on the continent of late years,—that it seems just possible such a phenomenon, may, sometimes, take place under the same circumstances that showers of the fry of fishes, taken up along with the spray of the sea by strong winds, and carried far inland, are known, occasionally, to occur in India. In two or three of the above cases, the toads were not merely observed in countless numbers upon the ground, after, and during, heavy storms of rain,but were seen to strike upon the roofs of houses, bounding thence into the streets; they even fell upon the hats, umbrellas, and clothes, of the observers, who were out in the storm,—and, in one instance, were actually received into the hand. See L'Institut, tom. 2 (1834), pp. 337, 346, 347, 353, 354, 386, 409;

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, 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) asserts, 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 of the land

tom. 4 (1836), pp. 221, 325, 314; tom. 6 (1838), p. 212. In all the places here referred to, mention will be found of the occurrence of this phenomenon. Of course, however, all the common cases of young frogs and toads being observed in such multitudes, in damp weather, are referable merely to their migration from their breeding-ponds, spoken of by White.-L. J.

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 approaches 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 tim myself."

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

Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of but one venomous reptile of the serpent-kind in these kingdoms, and that is the viper. As you propose the good of mankind to be an object of your publications, you will not omit to mention common salad oil as a sovereign remedy against the bite of

* "The whole of the typical batrachia, the frogs, toads, newts, salamanders, &c., undergo a complete metamorphosis."-T. B. In their larva state, they inhabit the water entirely, and breathe by gills. When adult, they come on land, and the gills are absorbed and replaced by true lungs. Some species, however, like the common warty newt, continue in the water, or very much resort to that element still, after having attained the perfect state. In such cases, it is necessary for them to come frequently to the surface to take in air.-L. J.

the viper. As to the blind-worm (anguis fragilis, so called, because it snaps in sunder with a small blow), I have found, on examination, that it is perfectly innocuous. A neighbouring yeoman (to whom I am indebted for some good hints) killed and opened a female viper about the 27th of May; he found her filled with a chain of eleven eggs, about the size of those of a blackbird; but none of them were advanced so far towards a state of maturity as to contain any rudiments of young. Though they are oviparous, yet they are viviparous also, hatching their young within their bellies, and then bringing them forth. Whereas snakes lay chains of eggs every summer in my melon beds, in spite of all that my people can do to prevent them; which eggs do not hatch till the spring following, as I have often experienced.* Several intelligent

* Our common snake, after depositing its eggs, leaves them to be hatched by the heat of the sun, or of a dung-heap; and this is more or less the habit of all the European species. But some of the great snakes found in India, incubate their eggs like birds. This fact was lately witnessed in the case of a female of the python bivittatus of Kuhl, in the menagerie of the Museum at Paris. Incubation was prolonged without interruption during nearly two months. The number of eggs laid was fifteen, all separate. After being deposited, the snake collected them together, and coiled round them the posterior part of its body; a second coil was then formed upon the first, and a third upon the second, and so on, until the whole of its body was rolled into a spiral, the several coils together forming a cone, at the top of which was its head, the eggs being all concealed within. Its temperature was sensibly augmented above that of the surrounding atmosphere, while incubation was going on: it ate nothing