71 



Prof. Wyman doubted the facts in the case. He thought 

 it impossible for this animal to exist in the human stomach 

 alive for any length of time. He knew of an instance in 

 which a toad had been swallowed alive by an insane man, 

 and was ejected dead within half an hour. A few years 

 since a man in Reading was reported to have vomited a 

 snake, and by this act to have been immediately relieved of 

 a chronic disease of the stomach. The fact being doubted, 

 the point was settled by opening the stomach of the snake, 

 when its only contents were found to be another snake, 

 proving incontestably that it could not have been an inmate 

 of a human stomach. The supposed vomiting of the rep- 

 tiles in both instances was the result of an accidental coin- 

 cidence, such as might very readily account for the story, 

 without impugning the veracity of the witnesses. 



Dr. Burnett remarked, that he had observed that Sala- 

 mandra symmetrica dies very soon v/hen deprived of moist- 

 ure. This might account for the sluggish movements of 

 the specimen when first seen on the door-step. 



Dr. Burnett gave an account of some observations which 

 he had recently made on the Seventeen years Locust 

 (^Cicada septendecim.) 



He had found that in the male in many instances there is 

 scarcely a trace of a digestive canal or biliary apparatus, whereas 

 in the female both are fully developed. This arrangement 

 is adapted to the peculiar wants of each, the male living but a 

 few days, and the female much longer. In the male, the sexual 

 system is fully developed when he emerges from the ground, the 

 testes being full of spermatozoa. The female, in emerging from 

 the earth, has about five hundred eggs in her abdomen of about 

 one thirtieth of an inch in diameter, which is only about half 

 their size at the time they are deposited. The development of 

 the eggs accounts for the necessity of food and her complete 

 digestive system. The male has about five hundred sperm cells, 

 containing each, in round numbers, about one thousand sperma- 

 tozoa, or five hundred thousand in all. The sheath of the penis 



