184 Scientific Intelligence. 



in regard to the rivera, utterly prohibit the idea ; the eggs, if placed there 

 by a water-spout, could not have suflPered so rapid a transmigration; no 

 such phenomena had been observed, and the adjacency of the line to the 

 dwelling, would have rendered the occurrence impossible without notice. 



A similar occurrence a few years ago, I witnessed on the same farm ; in 

 a very large ditch, cut on lower lands, on a line equally unconnected with 

 any river, pond, or other surface-water, tlicre were, under very similar cir- 

 cumstances, numerous perch, which afforded fine angling to my children. 

 In a diary which I keep, I have entered, that several of them measured as 

 much as twelve inches in length, and that the time since their arrival 

 there, could not possibly have exceeded a fortnight. 



While on the subject of mysterious nature, I will introduce, as concisely 

 as possible, a case, where she reconciled animals of the coldest and most 

 meagre habits, to the enjoyment of the warmth and luxuries of the human 

 stomach ; for these facts, though not personally conversant with them, I 

 have the authority of a medical gentleman of unquestionable veracity, to 

 vouch for their rigid truth. In reply to my request to be informed of the 

 habits, food, drink, enjoyment, &c. of the patient, I received the following 

 account. " On ray arrival I found that she (the patient) had puked up 

 two ground puppies, and was labouring under a violent sick stomach, with 

 pain, and syncope: the first was dead when ejected, the second was alive 

 when I arrived, and ran about the room ; they were about three inches long. 

 She informed me, that on the road that morning she had thrown up two 

 others. The case occurred in the summer, and had made gradual progress, 

 from the first of April, and as she described it, with a peculiar sickness, 

 and frequent sensation of something moving in her stomach; with slight 

 pain and loss of appetite, which increased till her illness. She was about 

 twenty years of age, and had enjoyed good health. Her employment had 

 confined her in the swamp, during the winter and spring, and she had from 

 necessity, constantly drunk swamp water." The physician administered 

 an emetic in quest of more puppies, but, being disappointed, he gave an 

 opiate; she was relieved, finally, and has been since in health. 



These animals have since been shown to me : they are not the ground 

 puppy, (gecko,) as they are vulgarly called. They resemble it very much, but 

 are easily distinguished from it. They belong to the same genus, (lacerta 

 or lizard,) but are of the species " salamander ; " their habitudes too, are 

 essentially different. The gecko is found in houses and warm places ; the 

 salamander in cold damp places, and shaded swamps, and by the streams of 

 meadows ; these animals, though oviparous, hatch their eggs in the belly 

 like the viper, and produce about fifty young at a birth. The inference is 

 irresistible, that the patient had, in her frequent draughts of swamp water, 

 swallowed, perhaps thousands of these animals in their nascent, or most 

 diminutive state of existence, and a few only survived the shock ; but it is 

 matter of astonishment, that from the icy element in which they had com- 

 menced their being, and for which they were constituted by nature, they 

 should bear this sudden transportation to a situation so opposite in its cha- 

 racter, and grow into vigorous maturity, unannoyed by the active chemical 

 and mechanical powers to whose operation they were subjected— >S?7/»wa»*« 

 Journal, vol. xvi. No. 1. p. 41. 



