The Zoologist — December, 1869. 1937 



was no water in the cellar, and no means of young frogs entering, 

 except by first coming into the kitchen, a mode of entry if not im- 

 possible, highly improbable. Mr. Sidebolham never found any 

 spawn." This observation goes rather beyond Mr. Lowe's hypothesis, 

 for it not only dispenses with the tadpole, but proved the non- 

 necessity of spawn also. 



My notice of Mr. Lowe's paper induced the Rev. Alfred Merle 

 Norman to send the following communication to the ' Zoologist' for 

 1853 : — " Mr. Edward Lowe's paper on the reproduction of frogs with- 

 out the presence of water, which appeared in the 'Annals' for April, 

 and is quoted in the ' Zoologist,' is one most deserving the attention of 

 all naturalists. In support of Mr. Lowe's fifth observation, I cannot 

 help sending you these few remarks ; — ' Year after year T have ob- 

 served the same circumstance, and to account for it has always been 

 to me the greatest puzzle. It was in a wine-cellar that the frogs were 

 seen, the exact position of which I must first attempt to describe. 

 This wine-cellar had no other entrance than a close-fitting door, under 

 which a moderate- sized frog could not possibly pass; nor do I think 

 that even young ones, such as those seen, could have done so, but of 

 this I cannot speak for certain : this door opened into a dairy, having 

 a window communicating by a small area with the garden. Minute 

 frogs were found continually, two or three years following, among the 

 damp sawdust in the cellar : they were very small, not larger than if 

 they had just assumed the perfect state. And now, as to how they 

 got there : is it possible that they were brought into the cellar with 

 the sawdust, and, from want of food, did not increase in size during 

 that lengthened period ? I should say not. We have now two pro- 

 positions left — either they must by some means have found their way 

 into the cellar, or they must have been bred in it. The nearest water 

 to the cellar was a small pond in a field separated from the garden by 

 a deep walled ha-ha: but I have never seen any tadpoles in that 

 pond, nor do I think it likely there would be any there, as the water 

 is very pure, coming from a spring not far off, and running in and 

 out of the pond in a continued stream. But granting, for the sake of 

 argument, that the frogs might have been bred there, to have reached 

 the cellar they must have crossed the field, mounted the perpendicular 

 wall of the ha-ha, traversed the garden, passed through the area and 

 window into the dairy, and thence under the door into the wine- 

 cellar, and this, too, in a party of some dozens !' " — Zool. 3912. 



SRCOND SliRIES — VOL. IV. 3 M 



