OF SELBORNE. 99 



curate account of the method and situation in which 

 the male impregnates the spawn of the female. How 

 wonderful is the economy of Providence with regard to 

 the limbs of so vile a reptile ! While it is an aquatic it 

 has a fish-like tail, and no legs : as soon as the legs 

 sprout, the tail drops off as useless, and the animal 

 betakes itself to the land 5 ! 



Merret, I trust, is widely mistaken when he advances 

 that the Rana arborea 6 is an English reptile j it abounds 

 in Germany and Switzerland 7 . 



It is to be remembered that the Salamandra aquatica 

 of Ray (the water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at 



5 The whole of the typical Batrachia, the frogs, toads, newts, salaman- 

 ders, &c. undergo a complete metamorphosis. In the land species, as 

 from their habits they have not constant access to water, the aquatic 

 portion of their existence, during which the gills remain attached, cannot 

 be passed in that medium in the same manner as the frogs, &c. They 

 undergo the metamorphosis therefore in the oviduct, before they are 

 excluded from the mother, and come forth in the perfect condition. But 

 in the other forms, the change takes place in the water, and the young 

 live there for a time in a fish-like state, as regards not only their respira- 

 tion, but most of the other functions of life. There is, however, another 

 deviation from this rule, still more remarkable than that of the salaman- 

 der, in the pipa or Surinam toad ; in which the male places the eggs on the 

 back of the female, impregnates them, and leaves them attached by a very 

 glutinous mucus. The skin of the mother grows up around the eggs, 

 foi-ming a cell for each, in which the young leave the egg, and undergo 

 their metamorphosis. 



The common water newt or eft exhibits a beautiful example of this 

 interesting change, retaining its pretty reddish leaf-like gills till the 

 animals are an inch or more in length. T. B. 



6 [Hyla viridis, LAUR.] 



7 From the way in which Mr. White speaks of the tree frog, it might 

 be inferred that he thought it was possessed of injurious qualities, 

 whereas a more innocent creature does not exist ; and it is besides so 

 little, and of so beautiful a green, that it is a very common pet in Ger- 

 many. My friend, J. C. Loudon, Esq. the well known author of the 

 Encyclopaedia of Gardening, kept one for several years; and in the 

 autumn of 1830, I caught one sitting on a bramble at Cape La He"ve, on 

 the coast of Normandy, which I kept for many weeks; but it finally 

 escaped from me between Bayswater and Hyde Park Corner, by the 

 gauze covering of its glass accidentally slipping off before I was aware. 

 RENNIE. 



H 2 



