92 RANADiE. 



possibly have been used upon the occasion, seems to require 

 a short explanation. About the beginning of the eight- 

 eenth century, Dr. Gwythers, a physician, and fellow of 

 the University of Dublin, brought over with him a parcel 

 of Frogs from England to Ireland, in order to propagate 

 the species in that kingdom, and threw them into the 

 ditches of the University Park, but they all perished. 

 Whereupon he sent to England for some bottles of the 

 Frog spawn, which he threw into those ditches, by which 

 means the species of Frogs was propagated in that king- 

 dom. However, their number was so small in the year 

 1720, that a Frog was nowhere to be seen in Ireland ex- 

 cept in the neighbourhood of the University Park ; but 

 within six or seven years after they spread thirty, forty, or 

 fifty miles over the country, and so at last by degrees over 

 the whole nation.'' What credit may be due to the note I 

 will not take upon me to determine, though it appears per- 

 fectly circumstantial, and given upon the editor's personal 

 knowledge ; but Swift's own notice proves indisputably the 

 fact of the introduction, and the period about which it took 

 place."' 1 



The respiration in this animal is, as has already been 

 stated, both pulmonary and cutaneous. The former func- 

 tion, that of breathing by lungs, is effected not by succes- 

 sive alternations of contraction and dilatation of the chest, 

 — a movement, which, as the Frog possesses no ribs, is im- 

 possible, — but by the act of swallowing air, as in the case 

 of the Testudinata before described. The mechanism by 

 which this act is performed is precisely the same in both 

 cases ; the air is inhaled through the nostrils by the dilata- 

 tion of the pharynx, the oesophagus being closed to prevent 

 its passing into the stomach ; then the posterior openings 

 of the nostrils being also closed by the application of the 



