138 
ANIMAL CURIOSITIES 
down from the clouds at Gibraltar, and, of 
course, the story at once aroused the usual 
amount of controversy as to the possibility 
of such a thing happening. The usual explana¬ 
tion put forward by those who are against 
accepting such reports as being true is that a 
sudden shower had awakened to activity 
numbers of small frogs that had but lately 
been transformed from the tadpole stage and 
were hiding under stones or in crevices in 
order to shelter from the heat of the sun. 
Although this solution of the mystery would 
appear to be a perfectly satisfactory one, yet 
the following letter published a short time back 
in the pages of a daily paper at once sets the 
ball rolling again, for the writer states: 
“In the summer of 1875 when going down 
the Ottawa River, Canada, with passengers 
for Montreal, a violent thunderstorm with 
torrents of rain burst upon us about 6.30 p.m. ; 
with the rain came thousands of tiny frogs, 
which covered the promenade deck. So much 
so that I ordered some of the deck hands 
up with a shovel to clear them away. Where 
they came from none of us could imagine as 
at the spot dense forest covered both sides of 
the river.” 
As promenade decks can hardly be regarded 
as suitable hiding-places for frogs, we must 
