1895- NOTES AND COMMENTS. 237 



named is specially interesting. It is shown that, judging from 

 monthly means, tJie range of temperature of the Nile water is less 

 than that of the air, while in the Mississippi it is considerably greater : 

 that the Nile is true to the climatic conditions of its latitude only in 

 winter, and the Mississippi only in summer, or, to put it otherwise, 

 that the influence of the higher courses is displayed in contrary 

 seasons : that nowhere below the second cataract does the Nile attain 

 so high a summer temperature as the Mississippi : and that in con- 

 trast to the Nile the temperature of the Mississippi waters is often 

 widely different from the surface water in the Gulf of Mexico. 



The paper concludes with the statement of a number of other 

 points, and suggestions for further observations. We are glad to 

 notice that Dr. Guppy promises to treat other great rivers of the 

 world in the same detailed manner. 



Toads in Holes. 



No doubt it is the silly season, when editors are so put to it for 

 copy that they have little time to revise what matter comes to hand ; 

 but our esteemed contemporary, the Daily Clironicle, surely had no 

 need to fall back upon the exceedingly ancient error concerning the 

 vitality of toads. Under the title " A Remarkable Release," they 

 recount how some workmen in Bedfordshire, cutting up the trunk of a 

 large oak uprooted during a recent storm, came across a toad 

 " embedded in the heart of the trunk, about eighteen feet from the 

 root." " The imprisoned creature, which must have subsisted for 

 some years upon the sap, was about half the size of a fully-developed 

 toad, and readily swallowed the worms, earwigs, and beetles which 

 were given to it." It should be needless to recall the old experiments 

 of Dean Buckland and others. By adopting the expedient of 

 burying toads so sealed up that they could obtain moisture and air 

 but no food, they found that toads were unable to live more than a few 

 months without food. As a matter of fact, toads habitually conceal 

 themselves in crevices and holes. In cases where they are found in 

 tree trunks, stones, and so forth, either the hole by which they 

 entered has been entirely overlooked, or they got in when they were 

 very small and grew healthily upon earwigs and other insects that 

 had sought similar concealment. We have no doubt but that if the 

 workmen had examined the inside of this particular toad they would 

 have found the remains of a more nutritious diet than the sap to be 

 obtained in a hollow trunk. 



Adders Again. 



The holiday season has not yet brought into our hands a set of 

 adders carefully preserved by the observers after they had swallowed 

 their young. But there has come into our hands a pamphlet on the 

 subject by Mr. H. Tootal Broadhurst. This consists of reprints of a 



