800 Generai Notes. [July, 
the United States National Museum, forms a volume of 250 pages; 
the nomenclature and classification being based on the list of 
Professor Cope, forming the first bulletin of the series, of which 
the present is the twenty-fourth. Recent experiments by Drs. 
Mitchell and Reichert, indicate that Heloderma suspectum is 
poisonous, It is usually sluggish in its habits, and will not bite 
unless provoked; but when the full-sized lizard (it grows to a 
length of three feet) does bite, it produces a poisonous wound, 
which may prove fatal. For the purpose of experiment, Dr. M. 
caused the lizard to bite on the edge of a saucer, and when saliva 
commenced to flow it was caught on a watch glass. Differing 
rom the saliva of venomous reptiles, which is always acid, the 
saliva of the Heloderma is alkaline. A very small quantity in- 
jected into a pigeon produced its effect in a tottering gait in less 
than three minutes, and caused death in less than nine minutes. 
The specimen presented was fourteen inches long, fat and plump. 
See NATURALIST, 1882, p. 907. That pigs will dive for fish is 
averred by J. C. Hughes, in Forest and Stream, who, writing from 
British Columbia, says: ‘‘ Pigs living upon the clear-water rivers 
learn to dive after the salmon lying dead on the bottom of the 
streams, and the interesting sight may be witnessed of a sow 
diving for a salmon, and when obtained taking it ashore for her 
little ones.” 
Geneyal—The third heft of the current volume of Gegenbaurs 
Morphologisches Yahrbuch contains a paper by Bütschli on a 
hypothesis relative to the derivation of the vascular apparatus of 
a part of the Metazoa. Under the title, “ Life, and its phy sical 
basis,” Professor H. A. Nicholson discusses protoplasm, and so 
called “ vital” phenomena ; while he discards the old “ vital force 
of the vitalists, he holds the hypothesis of an inner directing 
power in the vital phenomena of the higher to be absolutely 1m- 
evitable, and that if this applies to man so it must to the mo 
PSYCHOLOGY. 
GLUTTONY IN A FroG—A rather interesting incident ovcuted 
while I was a student in the Sheffield Scientific School, of Yale Ce 
lege. In the Peabody Museum we had a large wire cage com 
ing numerous reptiles, and among these was a frog of unusu 
size. 
On one of our excursions I brought in a number of frogs and 
other animals, and going to the cage dropped the contents of the 
satisfaction for a moment, then sprang upon 
size, caught and swallowed it as quickly as t 
