154 
NATURE NOTES. 
that animals are able to inform us upon the clemency or severity 
of a season. We are not so convinced about it as they are. 
Nevertheless, there is room to place together all the facts which 
militate in favour of this hypothesis. M. Paul Noel, for 
example, Director of the Regional Laboratory of Agricultural 
Entomology, admits, voluntarily, that insects, by their mode of 
procedure in different acts of their life, are able to furnish 
elements of prognostication. 
At the commencement of the winter of 1895, he says, I had 
to predict to the cultivators of Normandy that the winter would 
be almost naught, since I had remarked what little precaution 
the insects and even earth-worms had taken to protect them- 
selves from cold. To-day, he adds, I believe I can prognosticate 
that the spring will be a damp one in Normandy, and I rely in 
making this provision upon a curious observation that I have 
already had occasion to repeat several times. If, in the month 
of February, the frogs deposit their eggs in places feebly supplied 
with water, that will become dried up with the least sunshine, 
one can conclude almost surely that the spring will be humid, 
for the frogs are never mistaken, and do not deposit their eggs 
in pools or places badly furnished with water, and where the 
liquid cannot remain during the period relatively long and suffi- 
bient for the young tadpoles to become developed quite at their 
ease. Now, in 1896, the frogs of Normandy have deposited their 
eggs not only in pools well filled, but also in the little puddles of 
water, which can only give asylum to the tadpoles if plenty of 
rain falls to avoid the complete drying up of these feeble amounts 
of water. 
Then, according to M. P. Noel, here are the frogs as prophets 
of the weather. We have already the tree frog and his spawn ; 
but it has been proved in America that the frog has made fun of 
us. Let us hope that the Norman frog will be more serious. 
We shall see if the spring will be a moist one. It will not be 
difficult, alas ! 
Eels and Peas. 
Everybody knows, nowadays, that eels leave the streams and 
make excursions sufficiently far from their banks into the fields. 
Eels chase insects, and devour willingly enough, they say, 
cereals. It is affirmed, even, that they eat peas. M. Fistonhas 
made the same observation in the department of the Meuse. 
He had planted at 150 yards from the Ornain, a river where 
eels are abundant, several plots of peas. He remarked that a 
certain number of the pods were gnawed and even cut clean, as 
if by a cutting instrument. These damages were done in the 
night time, when it was foggy or when the fields were covered 
with dew. M. Fiston attributed this damage to field-mice. But 
one day his gardener came and told him that, having gone to the 
field in the early morning, lie saw “ serpents,” whicli fled on his 
approach and regained the river. There are plenty of vipers in 
