574 NOTES. 
Proceepines of the Agassiz Natural History Club.—The first 
meeting of the club was held July 24, 1873. President S. F. 
Whitney in the chair. 
Professor Agassiz, having been invited by the President to 
favor the club with remarks and advice concerning the best 
methods of work, responded very pleasantly. 
Mr. E. C. Crosby read a short paper upon the genus Bufo. The 
eggs of two specimens examined numbered 8840 and 2200 respe¢- 
tively, counted under a lens magnifying four times. All appeared 
black to the naked eye, but the lens showed half of them to be 
ashy-brown. With a power of 75 diameters, the eggs were seen to 
be spherical in shape and of various sizes; the interior of each of 
a lighter color than its exterior. The stomach of one toad con- 
tained eight orthopterous (Locustariz and Gryllidæ) insects and 
fifty-three Amphipod crustaceans with much dead grass-like matter. 
Some of the crustaceans were alive and moving in the stomach. 
The intestine and the oviduct were each sixteen inches in length. 
Reference was also made to the great comparative size of the 
femoral muscles in this genus. 
Mr. C. S. Minot said he also had noticed that in toads caught 
near the beach, the stomach was filled with Gammarus ornatus. 
In two specimens caught early in the morning the sand-fleas m 
the anterior part of the stomach were still alive ; in others caught 
just before noon they were all dead. He had also observed tee 
in all the toads killed by chloroform, the heart continued beating, 
after death; while just the opposite effect occurred in mammals. 
Dr. Wilder stated that when turtles and toads were killed with 
benzine the hearts would beat for several hours, although it, like 
chloroform, always stops the action of the heart with mammals; 
in one case a Chysemys picta was left for eighteen hours in 4 Jat 
with an excess of benzine, yet the heart beat for several hours 
after the animal was opened. 
Dr. Wilder also suggested that the depth (2 to 5 inches) of the 
hole in the turf, in which the toads are often found secreted during 
the daytime, might be for the sake of protection from the salt 
spray which must often sweep an unwooded island. 
He further remarked upon the absence of any mollusks in the 
omachs of those hitherto examined, although multitudes of small 
Littorinas are left upon the seaweed and among the stones where 
the Gammaroids occur. 
