322 CHAPTER XLV. 



home-ruling sort ! What a splash and splutter ; 

 what a " row " ! 



The purchaser of a certain turquoise Frog has 

 made a wonderful discovery, which, however I am 

 disposed to accept cum grano salis. You feed the 

 Frog on fireflies, which he swallows as we do oysters. 

 They continue to shine in the interior of the Frog, 

 which is thus beautifully illuminated, for the light 

 glows through his translucent body the more easily as 

 he has no ribs. He is, in fact, " eclaire* a jour," an 

 object of dazzling brilliancy, like Glycera's counten- 

 ance " nimium lubricus adspici " ; or like those brightly 

 shining bottles we see at night in the windows of a 

 chemist's shop. 



To make the illuminated turquoise Frog abso- 

 lutely perfect, he should be taught to croak in 

 arpeggios. 



St. George Mivart, F.K.S., has written a volume 

 on " The Common Frog." He tells us many inter- 

 esting things about the small saltatory reptile, which 

 is not a reptile : how he has three eyelids ; how he 

 cannot breathe when his mouth is open ; and so forth. 

 But what would Mivart say to the illuminated 

 turquoise frog ? What new experiments would he 

 try upon this tm-common Frog ? 



There is probably no new experiment which 

 could be tried upon a Frog, this never-failing resource 

 of the physiological experimenter. It would take 

 long indeed, says Mivart, to tell the sufferings of 

 much-enduring Frogs " in the cause of science." We 

 have tried what Frogs can do without their heads ; 

 what their legs can do without their bodies ; what 

 their arms can do without either head or trunk ; what 



