340 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
varieties, says :—‘‘ One I have lately seen—a young bird—had a patch of 
pure white under the bill, and one or more of the quill-feathers also white.” 
—R. Miniter Curisty (Chignal St. James, Chelmsford). 
BATRACHIA. 
Enemies of the Frog.— When living at Mackay, Queensland, I 
frequently observed that the common House-frogs, H. cerulea, were injured 
in the hind limbs, and on several occasions I would hear them croaking in 
pain; but on arrival all I saw would be a wretched exhausted frog weakly 
hopping away with a wound in the hind leg, from which the blood would be 
oozing. Later on I found that Rats attack the Frogs. The Rats catch the 
Frog by the hind leg, and apparently suck the wound they cause, then let 
the Frog crawl away, attack it and suck it again, and so on until the Rat 
has had enough. I believe the Rats suck the blood, because I was never 
able to discover a Frog so attacked on which the flesh had been destroyed. 
Mr. W. P. Fletcher, a well-known local naturalist, once gave me the following 
account of a Mantis attacking a Frog. It was in the autumn of 1877, at 
Rockhampton, Queensland. He was “attracted by hearing the noise of a 
Frog in distress, in the daytime, in some garden-shrubs about six feet high ; 
he went to see the cause, and found a green Frog about two inches long. 
A green Mantis about five inches long, with one claw had hold of it across 
the neck, so that the Frog could not move, and the Mantis was chewing, 
and did chew off, the hind leg, the blood flowing profusely.” He called 
Mrs. Fletcher to see them, and then destroyed the Mantis, whereon the 
Frog crawled away. At Lake Elphinstone (100 miles from Mackay) I once 
found a small Frog, H. rubella, in the house in a very exhausted condition ; 
on examination I found a large Leech on its tongue. ‘Lhis specimen, with 
the Leech attached, I gave to Mr. Boulenger at the British Museum, where 
it can be seen. At Mackay the chief enemies of the Frogs appeared to be 
the Snakes and the Agamide.—H. Liye Rots (48, Wimpole St., W.). 
REPTILES. 
Viper swallowing its Young.—The attention of a woodman in my 
employ, who was trimming the sides of a neighbouring wood, was attracted 
by a hissing noise at his feet; on looking down he saw a large Viper lying 
distended in a cart-rut in the act of receiving five young Vipers into its 
mouth, which he distinctly saw the reptile open wide before the first of the 
five crawled in. It was immediately dispatched, and on cutting the body 
open the woodman found the young oues alive and wriggling some distance 
down, and still further towards the posterior end an entirely uninjured and 
undigested Shrew-mouse. ‘This is one of the most authentic corroborations 
of the vexed question whether or not the Viper receives its young into its 
mouth when in danger.—J. C. Mansei-PiuypELi (Whatcombe, Blandford), 
