S^$4 Miscellaneous, 



as the constituents of wax might have been collected by the bees 

 before they were confined for experiment, and stored up in their 

 own bodies, or that the wax might be derived from the fat of their 

 bodies, which, in the proportions of its ultimate constituents, is very 

 similar to wax. To put these objections to the test, MM. Milne 

 Edwards and Dumas jointly undertook to repeat the experiments. 

 They first ascertained by analysis the quantity of fatty matter in the 

 bodies of a given number of bees, and the quantity of waxy matter 

 accidentally contained in the honey with which they were fed, during 

 confinement. The result of the experiments proved that the quan- 

 tity of wax produced in a given period by each bee exceeded very 

 nearly three times the combined amount of waxy matter contained 

 in the food, and of fat in the body of each bee at the commence- 

 ment of the experiment, besides a large amount of fat still contained 

 in its body at the close. These experiments most incontrovertibly 

 prove that the constituents of tha wax could not have pre-existed in 

 the bodies of the bees ; but that wax is a true formation, the result 

 of changes which the constituents of the food undergo, through the 

 agency of special, organs, during the process of nutrition. 



So again experiments on the functions of insects, when combined 

 with anatomical examination of their particular structures, and com- 

 pared with the vital phaenomena and structure of analogous parts in 

 our own bodies, and the higher animals in general, lead us to 

 equally important results. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



NOTE UPON THE HABITS OF THE COMMON TOAD. 



That the food of the Toad consists of insects as well as worms, is a 

 fact with which every naturalist is familiar, though all are perhaps 

 not aware of the extent to which in certain instances it preys upon 

 the larger Coleoptera, chiefly of the Carabideous kind. I once found 

 during the summer, concealed beneath a very large stone, one of these 

 reptiles, the stomach of which was filled with the detached heads, 

 thoraces, abdominal segments, elytra, &c. of Steropus madidus, Oma- 

 seus melanarius, Calathus. These hard parts, more or less broken, and 

 with the flesh dissolved out and digested, had undergone no further 

 change, so that the species they belonged to could be perfectly well 

 determined. I have since met with toads, in chalky districts where 

 these beetles abound, which were literally crammed with them, and 

 among others have found in the egesta the remains of Carabus vio- 

 laceus, and of some also of the large Curculionidse, such as Otiorhyn- 

 chus niger. I have myself forced an ordinary-sized toad to swallow 

 alive successively two of the first-named insect, which it eff'ected 

 without much difficulty, and have known it in confinement to devour 

 two C. moniles inclosed along with it. These observations tend to 

 throw some light upon the explanation of toads being found in holes 

 of rocks and hollows of trees, whither they had probably resorted in 

 search of the abundant store of insect -food which these situations 

 afford, and where they might remain until the cavity became closed 



