1883. | Psychology. 683 
draw my attention from her little one. The mother was full 
grown, and the young one, I should think, was about one-third of 
her size. 
So it seems this tiny cousin of the Iguanas has attractive 
psychic qualties, and so bird-like, too. But then if the bird heirs 
from the lizard, it should be an estate of body and of mind. But 
though a likeness in kind, how vastly superior to the inheritance 
in degree.—S. Lockwood. 
Buro AMERICANUS AT PLay.—Except in the love season, so 
hermit-like is the common toad that I never suspect it of having 
a spark of frivolity or fun in its make up. It has seemed to me as 
the personification of a stupid stolidity. It catches insects. But 
should the bug play opossum, Bufo would be completely hum- 
bugged, for however hungry, it would not touch it. Bufo’s eyes 
are everything. I do not think it can smell. If there is motion 
wholesome. ‘On one occasion I saw a very large Bufo under a 
gooseberry bush, whose shade sheltered him from the heat of the 
summer sun. I plucked some of the ripe fruit, and having sucked 
out the pulp I threw the sour rind so that it fell about an inch in 
front of the toad, making a slight rebound. Some folks have a 
Proverb— Where there’s smoke there’s fire.’ The Batrachian 
holds to a similar conceit—* Where there’s motion there’s life.” 
The gooseberry husk disappeared in a trice. I threw another. 
Own it went, too—and a third, when the big goggle eyes seemed 
Serious, as if looking into the matter. In vain I tried it again— 
Bufo had learned wisdom by experience. : 
_ Every one knows how a dog will play with a stick, and a kitten 
with a ball. Under the seat, where we resorted of an evening last 
summer, an old toad had his form or resting place. Into this 
damp spot his back parts were pushed, and from it his grave, golden 
eyes could watch while he waited for the cool of the evening. 
One evening he came out hopping as was his wont. A bit of dead 
twig had fallen from the tree overhead. Did he see it fall? I 
Cannot say. But this is what was witnessed by more than one. He 
took up that twig in his mouth, and sat on his hind legs like a 
rodent. The toothless fellow could not bite the stick, but he did 
go through a queer performance with it between his big lips, his 
lo -fingered hands upon it, as if he was improvising a flute. It 
Was a comical sight. It is evident that the creature was playing 
with it. "The whole thing was quite deliberate. Perhaps it occu- 
