Reptiles, 1821 



A gentleman, who about a fortnight ago was descending the Lighthouse Hill, 

 near Cromer, between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, heard before him a sound 

 which he describes as resembling the whirring of the nightjar. The noise increased 

 as he advanced, and appeared to come from a wall which adjoins a neighbouring pond; 

 and upon looking over the former " I perceived," to use the words' of our informant, 

 " three toads, sitting upon a stone with their mouths wide open, lifting up their voices 

 in very tolerable melody. I watched them for about a minute, then they caught sight 

 of me, turned bashful, and stopped their chaunt." — /. H. Gurney, William R. Fisher ; 

 June 30th, 1847. 



Is the Edible Frog a true Native of Britain P — As the * Zoologist ' has been the 

 means through which the discovery of the edible frog in England was announced to 

 the world, it ought also to be the means of reminding the less cautious class of natu- 

 ralists, that this finding the edible frog in one very confined locality is by no means to 

 be considered proof of its being a native. 



True, Foulmire is a very peculiar spot ; situated some miles to the south of Cam- 

 bridge on the very limit of the county, and surrounded by rising ground, the Cam, a 

 branch of which takes its rise here, is its only connexion with the real " Fens." The 

 nature of Foulmire differs from that of all other fens I have seen, in having the con- 

 tinuity of the vegetable substance or turf of which it is composed interrupted by fre- 

 quent wells or pits of pure water, the bottom of which is kept clean by the rising of 

 springs in the sand beneath, though in others of these pits, and those generally the 

 largest, the rise of water is not sufficiently rapid to prevent black mud accumulating 

 at the bottom, which in some serves as a pabulum for large water plants. Till lately, 

 on one side the rising ground was a sandy heath, which, if I have been rightly in- 

 formed, was inhabited by the natterjack, and I have seen this reptile in the sands of 

 Gamlinqay, which is no very great distance off. The common frog and the common 

 toad are abundant in the fen, so also the warty newt, and perhaps, though I have no 

 special remembrance of it, the common newt also. 



It is then a peculiar, and in some degree, an isolated fen, but it is certain, if the 

 edible frogs are aboriginal here, that in the course of ages the river must have carried 

 some into the true fens, through the very centre of which it flows for several score 

 miles ; and can we suppose that they would not increase and flourish there, as well as 

 in the neighbourhood of Kingsbury, where Mr. Bond informs me he has several very 

 thriving colonies? This last fact shows that they can live and increase in England 

 elsewhere than at Foulmire ; and the rapidity with which they have spread 

 themselves near Kingsbury does not point to any very distant period of time for their 

 introduction to Foulmire. That they do not exist, at least in any plenty, in the true 

 fens, is, I think, rendered highly probable by their never having attracted the atten- 

 tion of any naturalist there ; certainly in my own rambles in the fens I have not seen 

 anything like them. I say never, but I ought to qualify the expression by mention- 

 ing that Mr. Bond tells me he has lately heard of them there, of which I hope we shall 

 learn further particulars. But that it is not very easy to find, even where most abun- 

 dant, is shown by the fact, that though I have twice been to Foulmire, in March or 

 April, for the express purpose of finding it, I did not meet with a single specimen ; it 

 was I suppose rather too early in the year ; the common frog had spawned, and indeed, 



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