5 ° 
NATURE NOTES 
they would then have to sustain is a series of minute jars in 
the handling, since they would be packed separately and not 
inside the sack. Thus their first stage of transport is com- 
pleted, and they arrive at one of the parcel depots. Here they 
are de-carted, in much the same way as they were carted, and if 
“fragile” are carefully stacked, heads or tails uppermost, and, if 
unmarked in any w r ay, are probably emptied out upon the floor 
to undergo the process of sorting. After a series of gyrations 
they finally come to rest, and when sorted, are again packed in 
a locked hamper destined for the head office of the district in 
which the consignee resides. If for Oxford and a few other 
places the frogs would have the benefit of a journey by coach ; 
if for a town not served by coach, they would have a more 
merciful journey by rail. The frogs would probably require 
a few days’ rest in which to recover their normal spirits. All 
this, of course, only supposing the parcel in which they are 
packed does not come to pieces en route. Sometimes, however, 
the packing falls to pieces, and then of course the surreptitiously- 
packed creatures are exposed to view. 
We do not hesitate to say that the despatch of living 
creatures by this means is wrong and is utterly indefensible. 
True lovers of Nature need scarcely be included amongst those 
for whom this article is written. But there are many to whom 
a living creature is but another anatomical specimen to be 
dissected, and they deem it of little moment whether it has a 
few hours of torture before death or no. 
Many an exciting chase has taken place in a Post Office for 
some innocent unoffending frog or lizard. At other times more 
deadly animals have been discovered, and have had to be 
disposed of; scorpions from the scorching plains of Egypt have 
at times been met with. A box containing pigeons was once 
returned to the sender, after some delay in obtaining his address. 
Mice are not at all unusual passengers by Her Majesty’s mails, 
but for the sake of the safety of Her Majesty’s humble and 
dutiful Post Office officials, it is particularly pleasing to learn 
that only one consignment of 500 leeches has, at present, been 
discovered on its journey through the Parcels Post. 
When a consignment of living animals is discovered cn route, 
the delay in obtaining the address of the consigners and in 
returning it to them, adds still more to the cruelty of the prac- 
tice, and only when the animals happen to pass through the 
hands of a more tender-hearted official than usual is it likely 
that they will obtain any kind of nourishment beyond sawdust 
and carbolic acid. 
It may be within the recollection of some that a lizard was 
discovered in the process of passing through the Post Office at 
the Guildhall, on the occasion of the jubilee festivities ten years 
ago. The ridiculous action of the sender was, however, sur- 
passed by that of presumably one of the sorters, who being under 
the impression that water was its native element placed the 
poor creature in a jar of water in full view of the public. 
