652 General Notes. [ October, 
ing above the water, his white throat dilated till it was three 
times the size of the head, his mouth closed tight, he would sing 
his brief song and reassume his horizontal position. The pond 
was quite deep in the middle, but I secured some specimens 
to prove my statements on my return home. 
When I passed the pond again in the afternoen the same pro- 
gramme was being carried out, but I could secure no more speci- 
mens. On my return home I put my toad with the one I found 
Thursday, and in a few moments the male (the last caught) had 
clasped the female very tightly and I was expecting to raise some 
tadpoles, but they buried themselves in the earth the next day 
without laying any eggs. 
In the afternoon of Tuesday a friend of mine, Mr. W. H. Fox, 
found the Scaphiopus in a pond out on Prospect street, and 
secured quite a number of specimens together with some spawn 
which he thinks belongs to this toad. 
The next day (Wednesday, April 30th) I visited my pond 
again with net and pails, but the birds had flown without leaving 
a sign. Nota toad was to be seen or heard, and no spawn but 
frog spawn could be found ; but they may have dropped it in the 
deeper water in the middle of the pond, out of my reach and sight. 
Mr. Fox visited his pond also Wednesday, but could not find a 
toad except the common one (Bufo americanus). 
When I brought my first specimen home she buried herself in 
the earth, but when I returned from Fair Haven she was swim- 
ming around in her tub of water like the rest of them, and when 
I put the male in they stayed in the water together. Wednesday 
morning when the toads in the two ponds had disappeared, my 
pair had also buried themselves again in the earth in their box. 
So I think I can judge of the movements of the free toads by 
watching the movements of my captives—Fred. Sumner Smith. 
THE SHEDDING OF THE TRACHEZ AND DousLE Cocoons.—lt IS 
a physiological rule in insect growth that the lining of the tra- 
chez, and of such other parts as are more or less subject to the 
action of the air, is shed with the external skin. This is the case 
even with those ramifications of the tracheze where the lining 15 
not so fine as to be absorbed. I was somewhat surprised, there- 
fore, to find Mr. Edward Potts, in a late number of the NATU- 
RALIST, recording the fact as something interesting and new. 
The same remarks apply to his observations about finding two 
chrysalids in a single cocoon of Bombyx mori. These so-calle 
double cocoons are of very common occurrence, mentioned cen- 
turies since in works on silk culture, and noticed by every On¢ 
who has had much to do with the rearing of silkworms.—C. V. 
Riley, 
RELATIONS OF THE CTENOPHORA TO TRE JELLY FisHES.— 
_ Heckel has recently published a paper in the Jena Zeitschrift, m 
= which he describes and figures Clenaria ctenophora, a medusa © 
