56 JOURNAL OF THE [July, 



shall follow the older meaning, as when it included the Amphibia 

 or Batrachia, simply, however, for convenience. 



I recall with what interest, then a young man, the late distin- 

 guished palaeontologist, B. F. Meek, told me of his witnessing near 

 Albany an old toad taking off his shirt and then swallowing it. 

 He narrated the fact to James Hall, the geologist, who seemed 

 almost incredulous. Since then the spectacle has been seen by a 

 number of naturalists. The sight is truly comical. Bufo, when 

 the time for undressing comes, has his own difficulties, suggest- 

 ing his need of a valet. The batrachian head is a very immobile 

 thing, much as if it were soldered to the shoulders ; for one can 

 hardly say that a frog or a toad has any neck at all. By certain 

 contortions of the creature the skin is caused to crack. The 

 limbs aje brought, one at a time, to the mouth, and so the denud- 

 ing is at last accomplished. The old garment is now badly torn. 

 As the funniest part of the play should come last, so it is now, 

 for Bufo begins a quasi rolling-up process with his cast-off linen, 

 literally tucking it into the mouth, alternately with his right and 

 his left hand. It is at last got into the chest, with as much regard 

 for order as when the husband does the packing of the wife's 

 trunk. 



The toad loves the land, but the frog gives much of its life 

 to the still waters ; hence the former affords better opportunities 

 for observation when shedding. Like the toad, the frog divests 

 its cuticle in tatters, and devours it, although a contrary statement 

 may be found in the books. 



It is a puzzle to divine what may be the significance of this 

 eating its own skin by the reptile. If a stalk of corn be returned 

 to the ground the cuticle gives up a silicate and a phosphate for 

 vegetable alimentation. Is there in the toad's case some conser- 

 vation of alimentary chemistry ? In a day when exact science 

 was not yet born there seems to have been a belief that an extra- 

 ordinary virtue resided in a cast-off, dirty shirt ; for, said a Dr. 

 Van Helmont, "if you put into a vessel a few grains of corn, and 

 stuff into it a dirty shirt, after about twenty-one days the ferment 

 from the dirty shirt, modified by the odor of the corn, effects the 

 transformation of the wheat into full-grown mice." Of course, 

 whatever the marines may do, sailors won't believe that yarn. 

 'But the skin of the toad has in it a virtue of a different nature — 



