116 Nichols on Scaphiopus Solitariits. 



such breeding places as the one in which the subjects of 

 this paper were found; a locality where water can remain 

 for a short time only, and this in the most wet seasons. 



I also kept a few of the old frogs, three in number, two 

 females and a male, in a barrel, a third part filled with 

 moist peat muck, containing some earth worms* and other 

 small creatures. Occasionally I threw in a few garden 

 snails,! small pieces of meat, fish or insects. Whether they 

 ate of these provisions is uncertain. Occasionally I found 

 one or two of them out of the mud, in which they usually 

 buried themselves, reserving only a small breathing hole, 

 opening above their heads. I frequently shook them out 

 for the purpose of exhibiting them ; but they would soon 

 bury themselves again, by the dexterous use of their hind 

 feet. I kept them till the last part of November, when care- 

 lessly permitting the earth to become frozen, they were killed. 



Holbrook, in his N. A. Herpetology, vol. L, pp. 85-7, 

 says that he has found these reptiles in three states only, 

 viz : Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee that they 

 go into the water only in the breeding season, which he ob- 

 serves is in the spring ; and that they live in holes in the 

 ground of about six inches in depth, excavated by them- 

 selves never coming out of these, except during the night 

 or after heavy rains. This explains the mystery of their 

 sudden appearance and disappearance, as above mentioned. 

 It would also seem that they are Southern reptiles ; chilled 

 by our northern climate, they want a more genial season 

 to celebrate their nuptials ; and thus without a suitable pool 

 to receive the spawn, year after year in this instance trans- 

 pired, until a summer freshet filled their native habitat suf- 

 ficiently. 



I have some reasons to conjecture that other colonies of 

 these frogs exist in New England. An intelligent farmer 

 ofTopsfield, (Mass.), to whom I showed my specimens, 

 and related the foregoing history, told me he had several 

 times heard a similar croaking in a temporary pond of wa- 

 ter near his dwelling, but he never went to see from whence 



*Lumbricns terrestris, L. tLimax agrestris ? L. 



