Reptiles — Cruslacea. 6565 



The Toads in Clay. — To the notice, in the ' Zoologist' (Zool. 6537), of the occur- 

 rence oflive toads underneath a bed of clay, a note is subjoined by the Editor, asking 

 the name of any scientific man who was present at the exhumation. I am unable to 

 give such a name, further than as the intelligent foreman of the brickyard, Thomas 

 Duddridge (who witnessed the exhumation by one of the labourers of the yard), may be 

 entitled to the appellation ; but no one, however high his scientific attainments, could 

 be more careful than he was to give me correct information, or more exact in his 

 statements ; and if, after minute inquiry, I had not been fully satisfied of the correct- 

 ness of his account, I should not have sought to occupy the page of the 'Zoologist' 

 with its recital. On showing him the notice in the ' Zoologist,' he said it was im- 

 possible for anything to be more correct; and he added that the little cavity which 

 the toads occupied was quite smooth in every part, apparently by their long-continued 

 movements, — as smooth, to use his own illustration, as the inside of a china bowl. — 

 Tfiomas Clark ; Halesleigh, May 10, 1858. 



The Edible Frog long a Native of Foulmire Fens. — In reply to Mr. Alfred 

 Newton's query, in the last number of the ' Zoologist,' I have to remark that the 

 fact of the esculent frog being indigenous to this country appears to me to rest 

 on irrefragable testimony. My father, who was a native of Cambridgeshire, has often 

 described to me, as long ago as I can recollect, the peculiarly loud and somewhat 

 musical sound uttered by the frogs of Whaddon and Foulmire, which procured for 

 them the name of ' Whaddon Organs." My father was always of opinion that they 

 were of a different species from the common frog, and this opinion of his, formed 

 nearly a century ago, was confirmed by Mr. ThuruaH's discovery that the frogs 

 of Foulmire are of the species Rana esculenta. — Thomas Bell ; Broad Street, May 

 1, 1859. 



On Squilla Desmarestii. By P. H. Gosse, Esq., F.R.S. 



For the last six weeks I have had a living specimen of that pretty 

 and rare Crustacean, Squilla Desmarestii (Risso). It was taken 

 by means of the dredge from deep water, off Torquay, about the 

 middle of April, and has lived in one of my aquariums until yesterday 

 morning, when I found it dead. 



This individual agreed accurately with Professor Bell's diagnosis 

 (Brit. St.-Eyed Crust. 354) and figure. It measured, from the front of 

 the eyes to the spines of the last abdominal segment, exactly 

 two inches. Its colour while alive was a pellucid white, freckled all 

 over with wood-brown or pale sepia ; these frecklings or cloudings 

 under a lens resolved themselves into groups (constellations, so 

 to speak), more or less dense and more or less extensive, of very 

 minute stars; the whole bearing a close resemblance to the colouring 

 of Crangon vulgaris. The hands were white (ivory-like, but scarcely 

 so opaque) without freckles. The yellowish hue (a warm buff) of the 

 body, and the rose tint of the edge of the hand and of some other 



