Reptiles. 



6539 



retired with our spoils : the deceased were decently embalmed, and 

 are now in the Norfolk and Norwich Museum. Our prisoner survived 

 the journey home and lingered for three months in a foot-tub, usually 

 resting on a floating island of cork, from which he would leap into the 

 water whenever a fly was thrown for him on to its surface, and seizing 

 it swim back to his station, when he disposed of it in about two gulps, 

 though, indeed, if it happened to be a large blue-bottle a faint buzzing 

 might be heard for some seconds after it had disappeared from the 

 light of day. 



I lost no time in communicating the discovery we had made to Mr. 

 J. H. Gurney, who in reply informed me that some years before Mr. 

 George Berney had imported a great many animals of this species 

 alive, and had liberated them in this country. Here the matter rested 

 until a few days ago, when I received from the gentleman last named 

 an account of his proceedings, and, having his permission to do so, I 

 extract some portions of his letter, written from Morton Hall, Norwich, 

 March 25, 1859, which, I think, will be found interesting. Mr. Berney 

 says: — " I went to Paris in 1837; some letters which I wrote from 

 that place, and which now lie before me, fix the date with certainty : I 

 brought home two hundred edible frogs and a great quantity of spawn. 

 These were deposited in the ditches in the meadows at Morton, in some 

 ponds at Hockering, and some were placed in the fens at Foulden, near 

 Stoke Ferry. 



" They did not like the meadows and left them for ponds. I found 

 some in a pond at the top of Honingham Heights, near the old tele- 

 graph. I have measured the distance on a map, three chains to an 

 inch, this morning, and find it to be in a straight line If mile and forty 

 yards. In the whole distance there is not one drop of water, not a 

 puddle as big as a hand-bason, to be found between the meadows 

 where they w ere placed and the pond in which I saw and heard them. 

 It is impossible to mistake their cry or the two bladders that stick out 

 of their heads when they cry. 



" In 1841 I imported another lot from Brussels. In 1842 I brought 

 over from St. Omer thirteen hundred in large hampers made like slave- 

 ships, with plenty of tiers ; these were moveable and were covered 

 with water-lily leaves stitched on to them, that the frogs might be 

 comfortable and feel at home. These were dispersed about in the 

 above-mentioned places, and many hundreds were put into the fens at 

 Foulden, and in the neighbourhood." 



Now the place where we found, in 1 853, what were doubtless the des- 

 cendants of Mr. Berney's importations, is nearly equidistant from the 



