70 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



steps ; and was taken up, after supper, on the table to 

 fed. But at last a tame raven, kenning him as he put foi 

 his head, gave him such a severe stroke with his horny be 

 as put out one eye. After this accident the creatu 

 languished for some time and died. 



I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive readi 

 of the excellent account there is from Mr. Derham, in Ra 

 " Wisdom of God in the Creation " (p. 365), concerning t 

 migration of frogs from their breeding ponds. In tl 

 account he at once subverts that foolish opinion of th 

 dropping from the clouds in rain ; showing that it is frc 

 the grateful coolness and moisture of those showers tl 

 they are tempted to set out on their travels, which th 

 defer till those fall. Frogs are as yet in their tadpole stat 

 but, in a few weeks, our lanes, paths, fields, will swarm I 

 a few days with myriads of those emigrants, no larger th 

 my little finger nail. Swammerdam gives a most accun 

 account of the method and situation in which the m; 

 impregnates the spawn of the female. How wonderful 

 the ceconomy of Providence with regard to the limbs of 

 vile a reptile ! While it is an aquatic it has a fish-like tz 

 and no legs : as soon as the legs sprout, the tail drops off 

 useless, and the animal betakes itself to the land ! 



Merret, I trust, is widely mistaken when he advanc 

 that the rana arborea is an English reptile ; it abounds 

 Germany and Switzerland^ 



It is to be remembered that the salamandra aquatica 

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

 angler's bait, and is often caught on his hook. I used 

 take it for granted that the salamandra aquatica v 

 hatched, lived, and died, in the water. But John Eh 

 Esq., F.R.S. (the coralline Ellis\ asserts, in a letter to t 



1 Professor Bell comments on this statement: "There is, of course, 

 ground for the statement that the Hyla viridis is a native of this coun 

 It is difficult to understand how Gilbert White could entertain a repugnance t 

 little creature so harmless and beautiful, and so interesting in its habits. As 

 Hyla lives on trees, and does not frequent the water except for breeding 

 changes its skin in the same manner as the toad. This I have ascertaine 

 (Bell's ed., i. p. 53 note.) [R. B. S.] 



