EXPEDITION TO SURINAM. 



myfelf with fwimming, and paddling up the mouth of 

 the deep Wana Creek, with a canoe ; during w^hich time 

 a Mr. Ruback, one of our officers who was with me, ob- 

 ferved (in the top of a mangrove-tree) a battle between a 

 fnake and a frog; and for an additional proof that frogs 

 are to be found in trees, I refer the reader to the Monthly 

 Review for March 1785, page 199, where, in the Abbe 

 Spallanzani's Diflertation upon Frogs, the Tree Frog is 

 particularly mentioned. But finding this animal amongft 

 the branches did not fo much excite my furprize, as the 

 conteft between a fnake and a frog, which I fhall dif- 

 tindlly relate, and in which the poor frog loft the battle. 

 Indeed when I firft perceived him, his head and 

 flioulders were already in the jaws of the fnake, which 

 Jaft appeared to me about the fize of a large kitchen 

 poker, and had its tail twifted round a tough limb of 

 the mangrove ; while the frog, who appeared to be the 

 iizc of a man's lift, had laid hold of a twig with the 

 daws of its hinder legs, as with hands. In this pofi- 

 tion were they contending, the one for life, the other 

 for his dinner, forming one ftraight line between the 

 two branches, and thus I beheld them for fome time, 

 apparently ftationary, and without a ftrtiggle. Still I was 

 not without hope, that the poor frog might extricate 

 himfelf by his exertions ; but the reverfe was the cafe, 

 for the jaws of the fnake gradually relaxing, and by 

 their elafticity forming an incredible orifice, the body 

 and fore-legs of the frog by little and little difappeared, 

 Vol. I. G g till 



