Reptiles. 2855 



certainty, that it is some twenty-six years since they were first housed there, for the 

 Curator of the collection remembers them as long as he has held that situation, and 

 he believes that the said specimens were amongst the first presented to the establish- 

 ment. No clue have I been able to find yet as to who caught them, and where they 

 were found. Not being preserved in spirits of wine, every vestige of colour, and I 

 might also add outline, has disappeared from them. Since the time they were sent, 

 none others have been forwarded to this museum, and we might in justice conclude 

 that were these reptiles found in abundance nine miles off, some one would have had 

 the kindness to have sent a specimen or two for scientific students' examination. 

 From these evidences I can but deduce the fact, or rather hazard the conjecture that 

 the green lizard is not indigenous to Heme Bay, only naturalized, and even that 

 comparatively doubtful. This I believe accords with Professor Bell's opinion on this 

 point. Reflecting that we are all liable to err in our judgments, need I add that 

 I will still continue to learn all possible intelligence with regard to the habitat, 

 time of appearance, &c, of Lacerta viridis in this part of the country. — W. H. 

 Cordeaux ; Canterbury, May 10, 1 850. 



Shedding of the Skin as performed by the common Toad. — I have a small house 

 under my care' for growing cucumbers ; there is a bed in the middle of it, and the 

 soil is about 3 feet high from the ground {i.e., to the top of the hills where the plants 

 are in) ; a person, therefore, standing in the house can examine an object placed on 

 the hill- with ease. Last Saturday, about 7 o'clock, a. m., I uncovered the house and 

 went in to see that all was right, when to my surprise I saw my pet companion, a fine 

 toad, apparently in the agonies of death. It was seated at the end of the hill of 

 soil ; its mouth, or rather under jaw, opened every few seconds (the top jaw did not 

 move), the eyes shut, and the body violently convulsed each time the jaw opened, and 

 with each convulsion of the body the right fore-foot was raised to the head. I placed 

 myself in front of it, and perceived it was drawing something into its mouth each 

 time the jaw moved; at that instant the right eye opened: it then inflated the body 

 on the left side and drew in the right, placing at the same time the left fore-foot on 

 the head behind the eye, and drawing it down to the mouth ; it next appeared to hold 

 its foot in its mouth for about a second, which it then drew out, and I distinctly saw 

 the three points of skin that came off its toes outside its lips, till the next opening of 

 the jaw, when they were drawn into the mouth. When it drew its foot over its left 

 eye (which before was shut) it broke out as bright as ever. Some folds of the skin 

 adhered to the left leg, but by two or three motions of the jaw they were gone, and 

 in about a minute the skin was drawn off the lips ; the toad had eaten its own skin, 

 and there it stood with its new covering as bright as if it had been fresh varnished. 

 I endeavoured to touch it to feel if it was clammy, but the creature gave a vigorous 

 jump and the soil adhered to its legs. I looked at it in an hour afterwards but it had 

 begun to assume its dingy brown colour. The time it took to get off its head dress 

 was only a few minutes. It appeared to me that each time its jaw opened, it drew 

 the skin forward, while it distended the body on the side to be uncovered. — W. 

 Turner in Gardeners' Chronicle. 



