66 SCIENCE. 
recent years, the circular on the practical use 
of meteorological reports and weather-maps 
(issued by the signal-service, 1871), and the 
appendices on the relation of rain and winds, 
and on the course of storms in the different 
months, in the signal-service reports for 1878 
and 1874. 
(To be concluded.) 
THE INTELLIGENCE OF BATRACHIANS. 
In his recent volume on Animal intelligence,? 
Mr. Romanes devotes less than two pages to 
the intelligence of batrachians. He remarks, 
On the intelligence of frogs and toads very 
little has to be said.’ That our author should 
have included toads in the above seems 
strange; as instances of cunning, and proofs 
of the general intelligence, of these animals, 
are numerous. In conversation with practical 
observers of animal life, I have never yet 
found one that did not accord a marked degree 
of intelligence to toads. In short, toads may 
readily be tamed, will come when called, and 
have been seen to place matter attractive to 
flies, their principal food, near their hiding- 
places, so they could remain at home and at 
the same time be sure of a sufficiency of food. 
This evidence of foresight, on the part of 
toads, is no uncommon occurrence, and quite 
effectually establishes their claim to a credit- 
able degree of intelligence. 
Of the spade-foot or hermit toad (Scaphio- 
pus solitarius) and the tree-toad (Hyla versi- 
color) I have but little to record. The former 
is but rarely seen, and I have had no oppor- 
tunity to experiment with it with a view to 
testing its mental capabilities. The habits 
of the animal, as described by Agassiz and 
Putnam, would lead one to conclude that in- 
tellectually they are to be classed with the 
common toad. The tree-toad, or Hyla, being 
crepuscular in habits, was found difficult to 
study, and nothing was determined that bore 
upon the question of its intellectual capacity. 
I can but state my impression, which is, that 
they are not so cunning as the common toad. 
On the other hand, I am pained to confess 
that my many observations and experiments 
with the several species of true frogs found 
here, conducted without an intermission for 
four months, have yielded but little evidence 
that these creatures possess a particle of intel- 
ligence. It almost proved, indeed, to be labor 
lost, — 
‘To perch upon a slippery log, 
And sit in judgment on a frog.’ 
1 Animal intelligence. By George J. Romanes. 
sc. series, no. xliv.) New York, Appleton & Co. 
(Internat. ° 
UN eo ee 
5 
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[Vou. III., No. 50. 
Mr. Romanes remarks, that, if frogs are re- 
moved to a long distance from water, they will 
take the shortest route to the nearest pool or 
brook. Even this, I find, is only usually true. 
Quite ten per cent of such ‘removed’ frogs 
started off, when released, in the direction of 
the most distant water, rather than that which 
was nearest. One of my many experiments 
was as follows: I placed a pail filled with water 
in a dry, dusty field, burying it to the brim. It 
was protected by a cap of coarse wire sieving. 
I then liberated a frog within twenty yards of | 
it. It hopped in the opposite direction, towards 
water nearly three hundred yards distant. I 
then placed a frog on the opposite side of the 
buried pail, so that the distant brook could 
only be approached by passing near or directly 
over it, if the frog took a direct course. This | 
the frog did, and less than a score of leaps 
brought it to the water covered by the sieve. 
It seemed quite satisfied with the fact that a 
little water was in sight, although out of reach. 
Here the frog remained until morning. The 
following day I removed the pail, and buried it | 
within fifty yards of a running brook. I then 
took seven frogs of three species, and placed 
them upon the sieve, which was about half an 
inch above the surface of the water. Here 
five of them remained during the whole day, 
exposed to the glare and heat of a cloudless 
midsummer day. ‘The evaporation from the 
water beneath them barely kept them alive; 
and yet within so short a distance was a run- 
ning brook, with all the attractive features of 
ideal frog-life. 
IT repeated this experiment, with slight modi- 
fications, several times, and always with essen-. 
tially the same results. 
In his Travels in North America (Eng. trans., 
vol. ii. p. 171), Peter Kalm refers to certain 
habits of the bull-frog (Rana Catesbyana) 
which seemed to indicate that the frogs of this 
species occupying the same pond were some-_ 
what governed by a leader. His remarks are, 
‘¢When many of them croak together, they 
make an enormous noise. . . . They croak all 
together, then stop a little, and begin again. 
It seems as if they had a captain among them: 
for, when he begins to croak, all the others 
follow; and, when he stops, the others are 
silent ;’’ and he adds that the ‘ captain ’ appar- 
ently gives a signal for them to stop. This, 
if true, would be evidence of considerable in- 
telligence; but it is only apparently true of 
them. I have very carefully watched the bull- 
frogs in a pond near my house, and have found 
that the croaking of the ‘captain’ is not 
always that of the same individual. At times 
