Zoology.] NATURAL HISTORY OF VICTORIA. [Reptiles. 



the collection to their taste ; and no doubt they are as good as the 

 epicures in France find the Rana viridis. 



A*Greek scholar who had enjoyed at home the "batpaxoi" of 

 Aristophanes, and noted the ludicrous exactness with which the 

 author imitates the sound of the European Frogs' chorus in a 

 marsh by his opening words of the chorus — 



" (3p£K£K£K£% KOC& KOaZ, 

 (3p£K£K£K££ KOO.% KOa.% " 



would fancy the Frogs of Greece had come out to bear him com- 

 pany, so accurately does the sound of the daily summer chorus of 

 the present species in the like situation accord with that of the true 

 Rana of Europe. The Australian youth, who might fancy that the 

 coincidence was not so exact, from detecting a difference between 

 the sound of the words as uttered in the schools and by the Frogs 

 in the neighboring water, will find the discrepancy disappear, and 

 at the same time the similarity of the European true Frogs and our 

 representative, in this respect, vindicated by the following observa- 

 tion of Frere, in his translation of this play.* He begins the 

 chorus with "Brekeke-kesh, koash, koash" and says in a preliminary 

 note, " The spelling of the words of the chorus is accommodated to 

 the actual pronunciation of the Frogs, which, it is presumed, has 

 remained unaltered. The B in Brekeke-kesh is very soft, and 

 assimilates to the v. The e in kesh is pronounced like ei in leisure, 

 and the last syllable prolonged and accented with a higher tone. 

 The word as commonly pronounced by scholars (with the ictus or 

 English accent on the third syllable) bears no resemblance to the 

 sound which it is meant to imitate ; which has, on the contrary, a 

 slight ictus on the first syllable." This V sound of the B, or /3, makes 

 the wording of Aristophanes as exact an imitation of our present 

 Frog as Frere makes it for the Greek one. I have been much 

 amused in listening to the " Frosche Cantata " of the German com- 

 poser Hennig, which is sometimes capitally sung by our Melbourne 

 Liedertafel, in which the bass voice takes the part of a mature 

 German Frog, giving the occasional loud croak of our species with 

 all the additional exactness which a careful composer's music could 



* The "Works of the Right Honorable John Hookham Frere, edited by W. E. Frere, vol. 3, p. 249. 



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