forth every evening from a hole under the garden 

 steps ; and was taken up on the table to be fed after 

 supper. But at last a tame raven, kenning him as he 

 put forth his head, gave him such a severe stroke 

 with his horny beak as put out one eye. After this ac- 

 cident the creature languished for some time and died. 



I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive 

 reading of the excellent account there is from Mr. 

 Derham, in Ray's Wisdom of God in the Crea- 

 tion," concerning the migration of frogs from their 

 breeding ponds. In this account he at once sub- 

 verts that foolish opinion of their dropping from the 

 clouds in rain ; showino;- that it is from the g-rateful 

 coolness and moisture of those showers that they are 

 tempted to set out on their travels, which the\ de- 

 fer till those fall. Frogs are as yet in their tadpole 

 state ; but in a few weeks our lanes, paths, fields, 

 will swarm for a few davs with mvriads of those 

 emio^-rants, no laro;er than mv little fins^er nail. 

 Swammerdam gives a most accurate account of the 

 method and situation in which the male impregnates 

 the spawn of the female. How wonderful is the 

 economy of Providence with regard to the limbs of 

 so vile a reptile I While it is an aquatic, or in a 

 tadpole state, it has a fish-like tail, and no legs : as 

 soon as the legs sprout, the tail drops off as useless, 

 and the animal betakes itself to the land."^ 



* The tail of the tadpole does not drop off ; it is absorbed. 



67 



