1868.] 185 [Allen. 



An explanation has been recently given by Dr. Pickering \ as com- 

 municated to him by an old whaler, that accounts very satisfactorily for 

 the origin of the various stories of the Sea Serpent that have arisen; 

 namely, that " it was a humpbacked whale scooping fish, the upper 

 jaw being elevated, forming the supposed erected head and neck, 

 and the hump representing the imagined curvature of the serpentine 

 body." 



BATRACHIA. 



1. Bufo americanus LeConte. (Storer's Rep., p. 244.) Com- 

 mon Toad. Common. Much less abundant, however, than in some 

 sections of the eastern part of the State, as at Cambridge and vicinity, 

 where the species is extremely abundant, much more so than I have 

 ever observed it elsewhere. Does it prefer the vicinity of the sea ? 

 I also found it very numerous the past summer (1868) on the little 

 barren, uninhabited, sandy island of Muskeget, between Nantucket 

 and Martha's Vineyard. In Cambi-idge the species appears very early 

 in the season, where, quite early in April, I have often observed them 

 in great numbers stiffened with cold on frosty mornings; while I have 

 rarely noticed them at Springfield till after quite warm weather. 

 Besides being less abundant at Springfield, the average size of the 

 specimens commonly seen is certainly much less than at Cambridge. 

 They commonly deposit their eggs during the fii-st half of May. 

 During the last part of August they often begin to disappear, some 

 burying themselves in the dry, sandy fields, where I have found them 

 a foot below the surface as early as the first week of September; 

 others no doubt repair to ponds and, like the frogs, hibernate in the 

 mud. In February I once found great numbers of both toads and 

 fi:ogs, the latter of several species, under loose stones in an unfrozen 

 spring. 



An interesting fact in reference to the torpidity of the toad came 

 under my observation July 25th, 1864. Some workmen in clearing 

 a well in which mud and miscellaneous material had been accumulat- 

 ing for upwards of twenty years, di'ew up, in emptying it of water, 

 several living and dead toads. Afterwards as many as twenty were 

 found in the mud in a torpid condition, their position varying in depth 

 from a few inches to two or three feet below the surface. When first 



1 Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. IX, p. 245. 



