1938 The Zoologist— December, 1869, 



To the conclusions at which Mr. Nonnan seems to have arrived 

 I ventured at the time respectfully to demur : the argument seems in 

 all cases to run thus: — Suppose it impossible for the little frogs to 

 have gained access to the situations in which they were found by 

 any ordinary means such as those suggested, by passing through a 

 kitchen, &c., how did they get there at all ? Surely no one will ven- 

 ture on spontaneous cellar generation ! and if it be admitted that the 

 phenomena of generation and parturition took place at all, the parents 

 must have entered by some way, although Mr. Norman says there was 

 no means of entrance but under a close-fitting door. Now, if the 

 parents did get in by any means whatever, it seems to me that the 

 much smaller young ones could get in : the climbing of the wall of the 

 ha-ha seems to me to offer no kind of difficulty to a frog, as we shall 

 presently see. 



The observations of Mr. Lowe, Mr. Sidebotham and Mr. Norman 

 attracted very considerable attention, some writers dissenting from the 

 inferences implied by their communications ; and one, Mr. Garland, 

 narrating a circumstance which supported if not established them. 

 ^' I had a wine-cellar," says Mr. Garland, " about ten feet long by 

 eight wide at the end, and leading out of a back kitchen, below the 

 level of a small garden situated in the High Street in the middle of 

 the town of Dorchester. There was only one door to the cellar, and 

 one small window opening on a little square space with a railing 

 over it upon the level of the garden, the path of which was flagged 

 with large paving-stones. I had a wooden shutter fixed on the inside 

 of my cellar, to increase the facility of obtaining an equable tempe- 

 rature for the wine, and which was constantly kept up and fastened, 

 I found some large frogs in it the first year I went to the house ; 

 these I had taken out and the cellar thoroughly cleaned. I am quite 

 sure no others could have obtained access thereto through the window, 

 and, of course, they could not through the two kitchens; yet, to my 

 great surprise, the next year I found frogs in considerable number, 

 and of different degrees of size, some very small. They were again 

 got rid of in like manner, and the cellar cleaned ; but the same occur- 

 rence the happened next year : there was no sawdust, the wine being 

 packed on laths."— Zoo/. 3989. 



I leave the subject here, only inviting attention to the fact that the 

 frogs thus apparently produced in or by the cellar, were " of different 

 degrees of size," a fact that seems to raise additional doubts as to 

 their origin. These interesting extracts are inserted here because of 



