OF SELBORNE. 49 
table to be fed. But at lafl: a tame raven, kenning him as he put 
forth his head, gave him fuch a fevere ftroke with his horny beak 
as put out one eye. After this accident the creature languiflied 
for fome time and died. 
I need not remind a gentleman of your extenfive reading of 
the excellent account there is from Mr. Derham, in Ray's Wifdom of 
God in the Creation (p. 365), concerning the migration of frogs 
from their breeding ponds. In this account he at once fubverts 
that foolifh opinion of their dropping from the clouds in rain ; 
Ihewing that it is from the grateful coolnefs and moifture of thole 
fliowers that they are tempted to fet out on their travels, which 
they defer till thofe fall. Frogs are as yet in their tadpole (late ; 
but, in a few weeks, our lanes, paths, fields, will fwarm for a few 
days with myriads of thofe emigrants, no larger than my little 
finger nail. Swammerdam gives a moft accurate account of 
the method and fituation in which the male impregnates the 
fpawn of the female. How wonderful is the oeconomy of Provi- 
dence with regard to the limbs of fo vile a reptile ! While it is an 
aquatic it has a fifh-like tail, and no legs : as foon as the legs 
fprout, the tail drops olf as ufelefs, and the animal betakes itfelf 
to the land ! 
Merret, I truft, is widely miftaken when he advances that the 
rana arberea is an EngUJJo reptile ; it abounds 'm Gernmny and 
Switzerland. 
It is to be remembered that the falamandm aquaiicd of Ray (the 
water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at the angler's bait, and 
is often caught on his hook. I ufed to take it for granted that 
the fdlamandra aquat'ca was hatched, lived, and died, in the water. 
But John Ellis, Efq. F. R. S. (the coralline Ellis) alTerts, in a 
ktter to the Royal Societyj dated Jmis the 5th, 1766, in his ac^ 
H count 
