MIDNIGHT TEREORS. 431 



destroying rats in the lowlands. They had been 

 considered in Barbadoes very important auxiliaries 

 to the planter in this work, by their pursuit and 

 destruction of the young rodents. I doubt the 

 power of any cold-blooded reptile to do much in this 

 way. Barbadoes, however, only availed herself of 

 the experience of Martinique, from whence she de- 

 rived her original stock of toads and frogs, Mar- 

 tinique herself having imported them from Cayenne. 

 When you receive the specimens put up in spirits 

 for you, you will be able to ascertain whether they 

 are Batrachians of the southern continent. Some 

 amusing stories are told of the terror they excited 

 when their first outburst of bellowing was heard. 

 Families sat up all night, believing their houses 

 beset by persons who played upon their fears by 

 these horrible noises only to pillage their premises 

 successfully. They are now ineradicably established 

 among us, and are to be added to the miscalculating 

 delusions which gave us " big rats " to devour " little 

 rats" and the Formica omnivora, the native ant of 

 Cuba, to rid us of the accumulated pest of rats and 

 vermin, and to become a more intolerable scourge 

 than all the other plagues put together. The For- 

 mica oimiivora is set down in our chronology of 

 memorable things as an importation, by Thomas 

 Raffles, of the year 1762. The big rats tradition 

 gives to Sir Charles Price, as your inquiries informed 

 you when here." 



"Feb, 27111, 1847. — What with their noise and 

 what with their depredations on the ducklings in the 

 ponds, the imported frogs are found already to be a 



