41 2 Scientific Intelligence. 
the attitude of a pointer, motionless eyes its destined victim for 
a few seconds, when it darts out its tongue upon it, and lodges 
it in its throat with a velocity which the eye can scarcely follow. 
It sometimes happens to make an ineffectual stroke, and stuns 
the insect without gorging it, but never makes a second stroke 
until the insect resumes motion. It uniformly refuses to feed 
on dead insects, however recent. For several years a toad took 
up its abode, during the summer season, under an inverted gar- 
den-pot, which had a part of its rim broken out, in the writer’s 
garden, making its first appearance in the latter end of May* 
and retreating about the middle of September. This toad, there 
is reason to believe, distinguished the persons of the family, who 
daily fed it, from strangers, as it would permit them to pat and 
stroke it. To try the indiscriminating appetite of these animals^ 
the writer has dropped before a full-grown toad, a young one of 
its own species, about three-fourths of an inch long, and the in- 
stant it began to move off, it was eagerly struck at and swal- 
lowed ; but the writer, in repeating this experiment, found that 
more will refuse than devour the young of their own species. 
When living minows ( Cyprinus Phoxinus ) were dropped be- 
fore a toad, they were struck at and swallowed in the same man- 
ner. These experiments were made on toads at full liberty, and 
met with accidentally. Toads generally return to their winter 
quarters about the time that swallows disappear. The writer, 
on such occasions, has seen them burrowing in the ground back- 
wards, by the alternate motion of their hind legs.” — Letter from 
Mr Fothcrgill to Dr Sims , F.L.S. 
42. Spur of the Ornithorhynchus. — 44 You will be gratified to 
learn, that I have been completely successful in establishing our 
friend Sir John Jamison’s account of the spur of the Ornithorhyn- 
chus paradoxus. I subjoin an extract from my notes : — 4 Sun- 
day, Oct . 1. 1820. — On the banks of Campbell’s River. In the 
morning shot a male Ornithorhynchus. On examination, soon 
after it was killed, I observed near the extremity of the convex 
side of the spur, a minute spot, like the orifice of a tube ; and* 
on endeavouring to pass a bristle from this spot, three succes- 
sive drops of a limpid clear fluid issued from it. I then exa- 
mined the other spur with the same result. On dissecting the 
foot of the animal, I found, at the inner side of the root of 
