50 



EECEEATIYE SCIENCE. 



its beauty wlien kept as a pet. Its habit is 

 to sit perfectly still on the summit of tbe 

 rockwork iu tbe glass, or on a flat leaf of a 

 plant wben set at liberty in a greenLouse; 

 but tbe moment a fly passes, it wakens up, 

 becomes restless, and screws its legs together 

 for energetic action. Fixing its beautiful 

 eyes on a buzzing bluebottle, froggy waits 

 his opportunity, and presently at one spring 

 he pounces on the victim, and swallows him 

 whole. The bluebottle goes buzzing to its 

 sepulchre. It is in this lively method of 

 taking its prey that we are enabled to note 

 particularly the manner in which this frog 

 is equipped for the curious life it leads. 

 The toes are all furnished with suckers, 

 which enable it to hold firm to whatever 

 object it may alight upon, so that though it 

 may miss the mark of its appetite, as some- 

 times happens, it never falls or loses its 

 balance, but is instantly at rest on some kind 

 of support, and as immobile as if nothing had 

 happened. 



Syla arborea has all the ordinary charac- 

 teristics of a reptile, though possessed of 

 considerable individuality. The hybernation 

 is quite of the reptile type, and the changing 

 of skin takes place in precisely the same 

 manner as in the common toad. The creature 

 first changes colour, and becomes mopish. 

 The vivid shining green gives place to a 

 dark hue, which, as the time of exuvation 

 approaches, deepens to a bottle-green. In a 

 day or two he is again as bright and lively as 

 ever, sporting a new jacket ; his eyes have a 

 fresh sparlde, and his appetite is so keen, 

 that the flies can no longer crawl over his 

 nose with impunity — they are pounced upon 

 and bolted, the moment they come within 

 reach of his spring. One thing strikes me 

 as worthy of special notice, and that is, that 

 the flies have not the least sense of danger, 

 and make towards him as they do towards 

 glistening objects generally. The instinctive 

 fear of enemies is a common fact in the natu- 

 ral world, but between Hylas and his proper 



dinner there is no evidence of its existence, 

 the dinner may, when he is in an idle mood, 

 playfully tickle the nose that is presently to 

 recognize its savour. 



Though it delights in water, and needs 

 to have it always within reach, it is in summer- 

 time but partially amphibious . It wUl now and 

 then swim round, and then ascend the glass, 

 where it wiU remain motionless for hours, hold- 

 ing tight by means of its toe-suckers and the 

 delicate membrane of the stomach, which in- 

 deed it depends on chiefly when attached to 

 a smooth surface. Being quite familiar with 

 its history long before I obtained specimens, 

 I prepared a cage of wire gauze to stand on 

 a glass dish for them, when the three were 

 presented to me. Unfortunately, I trusted 

 the manufacture of the cage to a man who 

 had neither brains nor fingers, and the result 

 was, that having given them a branch to 

 climb upon, a supply of water, and a piece of 

 rockwork rising out of it, two made their 

 escape the same night through a gap in the 

 wirework, and were never heard of more. 

 The cage was then cast aside, and the lonely 

 representative of his race transferred to a 

 bell-glass, neatly prepared for him with 

 pebbles and rockwork. A small flower-pot 

 ^^as made the basis of the rockery, and 

 on it was fixed, with plaster of Paris, some 

 small pieces of broken burrs, so as to form a 

 pyramid. A ten-inch bell-glass gives him 

 plenty of room, and escape is prevented by 

 covering the top with the wire gauze lid 

 of the disused cage. Once or twice a 

 week Mr. Hylas has liberty to leap about 

 and climb the windows, where he catches 

 flies for himself. Meanwhile, the rockwork 

 is lifted out, the pebbles washed, and the 

 glass cleaned, and the whole made bright for 

 his reception again. He has become very 

 tame, and wiU sit on my finger, and leap from 

 it when the buzzing of a blow-fly makes him 

 for the moment a sort of aerial tiger ; then 

 his quickness of sight, and spasmodic rapidity 

 of action are indeed amusing. Ordinarily, 



