526 Scientific and General Memoranda. 



see a pointer turn suddenly, when the game is one side of him, 

 and has approached very near before he has perceived it. After 

 a pause of some seconds or more, the frog makes a dart at the 

 worm, endeavouring to seize it with his mouth ; in this attempt 

 he frequently fails more than once ; and generally waits for a 

 short interval, acting the pointer, as it were, between each at- 

 tack. Having succeeded at last in getting the worm into his 

 mouth, if it be a large one, he is unable to swallow it immediate- 

 ly and all at once ; and the portion of the worm which yet re- 

 mains unswallowed, and extends out of the mouth of its destroy- 

 er, of course wreaths about, and struggles with a tortuous mo- 

 tion. With much, but somewhat grotesque dexterity, the frog 

 then employs his two fore feet, shoving, and bandying the worm, 

 first with one, and then with the other, in order to keep it as 

 nearly as may be in the centre of his mouth, till the whole is 

 swallowed. Any of your readers who are fond of marking the 

 actions and habits of animals are strongly recommended to 1.^" 

 the experiment. They have only to find a frog, taking care not to 

 alarm him more than need be, and throw down a worm near him, 

 and they will be pretty sure to be gratified by the sight of what I 

 have endeavoured, however imperfectly, to describe. I ought to 

 add that, to be successful, the experiment should be made in the 

 summer, say June or July ; as I am informed, (but do not vouch 

 for the fact,) that, except for a few months in the summer, the 

 frog is wholly abstemious." 



Bi'Valve Mouse Traps. — A person at Plymouth, having placed 

 some oysters in a cupboard, was surprised at finding, in the 

 morning, a mouse caught by the tail, by the sudden collapsing of 

 the shell. About forty years since, at Ashburton, at the house 

 of Mrs. Allridge, known by the name of the New Inn, a dish of 

 oysters was laid in the cellar ; a large one soon expanded its 

 Valves, and two mice bounced upon the " living luxury," and 

 were at once crushed between the valves. The oyster, with 

 the two mice dangling from its shell, was for a long time ex- 

 hibited as a curiosity. Carew, in his history of Cornwall, tells 

 of an oyster that closed on three mice. An appropriate instance 

 is also epigrammatically recorded in the Greek anthology. 



M. M H. 



