92 RANADA. 
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.” 
The respiration in this animal is, as has already been 
stated, both pulmonary and cutaneous. The former fune- 
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 esophagus being closed to prevent 
its passing into the stomach ; then the posterior openings 
of the nostrils being also closed by the application of the 
