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[June, 
NOTES. 
Bird-eating Frog. — The following curious narrative is taken 
from the “ Cape Times,” March 27th, 1883 : — “ A lady living in 
the George district supplies the * G. R. Herald ’ with the follow- 
ing particulars of the remarkable habits of this creature : — ‘ I 
have much pleasure in furnishing all the information we have 
regarding the large frogs which have proved so destructive to 
our young chickens. A water-sluit runs round our terrace, and 
passes through the ground over which the poultry range, and in 
this the frogs harbour. The first time our attention was drawn 
to their bird-eating propensity was by the cries of a small bird 
in a fuchsia near the stream. Thinking it had been seized by a 
snake, several hastened to the spot, and saw a beautiful red and 
green sugar-bird in the mouth of a large greenish frog : only the 
bird’s head was visible ; and its cries becoming fainter, the frog 
was killed and the bird released. Its feathers were all wet and 
slimy, and for some days after we could distinguish it in the 
garden by its ruffled plumage. Since then the same species of 
frog has on several occasions been killed with young chickens, 
half-swallowed, and once a duckling was rescued from the same 
fate. Whether the noise is natural to these frogs, or assumed to 
decoy the chickens within their reach, we know not ; but they 
constantly make a chuckling sound so exadtly like a hen calling 
her chickens for food that we have seen whole broods deceived, 
and rushing towards the sluit where they supposed the hen to 
be. The frogs are very wary, and it is difficult to find them un- 
less by the screams of their vidtims. We have lost large num- 
bers of small chickens in an unaccountable manner, and feel 
sure now that these frogs must be answerable for very many of 
them, as there are no rats here, and the chickens are carefully 
housed at night. If I can give you any further details I shall be 
glad to do so.’ ” 
Quinine and cinchonine, if introduced hypodermically into 
Guinea-pigs, rabbits, and dogs, prove fatal if the dose is suffi- 
cient. A dog weighing 12 kilos, died from a dose of 2 grms. 
One Joseph A. Steiss, D.D., in a treatise on “ Primeval As- 
tronomy,” declares Evolution “a lie.” This is a simple and 
“ primeval,” but unfortunately not conclusive, style of ar- 
gument. 
Prof. Palmieri announces the existence in the lava of Vesuvius 
