96 RANADA. 
and the Frog having expressed malice or anger by his 
swoln cheeks and staring eyes, did stretch out his legs, and 
embraced the pike’s head, and presently reached them to 
his eyes, tearing with them and his teeth those tender 
999 
parts. It appears by the sequel that the bishop’s fisher- 
man assured him that ‘‘ pikes were often so served.” Now, 
although there is evidently here much of the exaggeration 
which may naturally be expected from the astonishment of 
ignorance, yet there is no reason to doubt that the main 
facts are true. It happens, too, that the sex of the Frog is 
incidentally and unwittingly furnished by the writer by his 
mention of the ‘‘ swoln cheeks,” which he attributes to the 
creature’s malice against his formidable enemy. 
I have often heard my father relate an instance of a 
similar fact, though with somewhat more adherence to the 
simple truth of the case. As he was walking in the spring 
on the banks of a large piece of water at Wimpole, the 
seat of Lord Hardwicke, he observed a large pike swim- 
ming in a very sluggish manner near the surface of the 
water, having two dark-coloured patches on the side, which 
he thought must be occasioned by disease. A few days 
afterwards he saw the same pike floating dead upon the 
surface of the water, and having drawn it to land by means 
of a stick, he found that the dark-coloured masses, which 
he had observed on the former occasion, were two living 
Frogs, still attached to the fish, and that so firmly, that it 
required some force to push them off with the stick. There 
can be no doubt that the diseased state of the pike facili- 
tated the approach and adhesion of the Frogs, to which 
they were primarily impelled by the sexual instinct before 
mentioned. 
During the cohesion of the two sexes, then, the female 
commences the deposition of the spawn, which is fecundated 
