108 OUR REPTILES. 



only forget for a while their origin and name,, 

 and fancy them little stewed rabbits, which they 

 most resemble. 



Mr. P. Buckland, when in Paris on one 

 occasion, resolved upon a banquet of frogs. 



I went (he says) to the large market in the Faubourg St. 

 Germain, and inquired for frogs. I was referred to a stately- 

 looking dame at a fish-stall, who produced a box nearly full 

 of them, huddling and crawling about, and occasionally 

 croaking, as though aware of the fate to which they were 

 destined. The price fixed was two a penny, and having 

 ordered a dish to be prepared, the dame de la halle dived 

 her hand in among them, and having secured her victim by 

 the hind legs, she severed him in twain with a sharp knife ; 

 the legs, minus skin, still struggling, were placed on a dish ; 

 and the head, with the fore-legs affixed, retained life and 

 motion, and performed such motions that the operation 

 became painful to look at. These legs were afterwards 

 cooked at the restaurateur's, being served up fried in bread- 

 crumbs, as larks are in England ; and most excellent eating 

 they were, tasting more like the delicate flesh of the rabbit 

 than anything else I can think of. I afterwards tried a dish 

 pf the common English frog, but his flesh is not so white 

 nor so tender as that of his French brother. 



Frogs, and sometimes toads, are more exten- 

 sively eaten than some of us would imagine. In 

 China, at New York, on the banks of the Seine 

 and the Amazon, in the West Indies and the 

 East, in the Philippines and the Antilles, by 

 both barbarous and civilized races, frogs or 

 toads are regarded as delicacies. Professor 



