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ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 
CHAPTER IX, 
BATRACHIANS AND REPTILES. 
On the intelligence of frogs and toads very little has to 
be said. Frogs seem to have definite ideas of locality; 
for several of my correspondents inform me that they have 
known cases in which these animals, after having been 
removed for a distance of 200 or 300 yards from their 
habitual haunts, returned to them again and again. This, 
however, may I think perhaps be due to these haunts 
having a moistness which the animals are able to perceive 
at a great distance. But be this as it may, certainly the 
distance at which frogs are able to perceive moisture is 
surprising. Thus, for instance, Warden gives a case in 
which a pond containing a number of frogs dried up, and 
the frogs thereupon made straight for the nearest water, 
although this was at a distance of eight kilometres. 1 
A curious special instinct is met with in the toad Bufo 
obstetricans , from which it derives its name ; for the male 
here performs the fuuction of an accoucheur to the female, 
by severing from her body the gelatinous cord by wdiich 
the ova are attached. 
Another special instinct or habit manifested by toads 
is described by M. Duchemin in a paper before the 
Academy of Sciences at Paris. 2 The habit consists in the 
killing of carp by squatting on the head of the fish and 
forcing the fore-feet into its eyes. Probably this habit 
arises from sexual excitement on the part of the toads. 
I have one case, communicated to me by a corre- 
spondent, of a frog which learnt to know her voice, and to 
come when called. As fish will sometimes do the same 
1 Account of the United States, vol. ii., p. 9, 
g April II, 1870. 
