excursion in the air; but, when he has risen
to the altitude of an inch or two, Mr. Verdant
cuts a violent caper, and catches the flutterer
on the wing. If the frog is large and the fly
little, it is gone without further ceremony;
but if the fly is nearly as big as the frog, its
struggles are wrestled with by the conqueror's
fore-paws, which push it down the wide-open
throat, much as a clown in a pantomime
contrives to swallow his string of stolen
sausages.

Poor Mr. Verdant is often kidnapped by
continental savans, in preference to his
relations the Browns, for the purpose of serving
in electrical experiments, or as a living hygrometer
or hygroscope, in which latter
capacities I have no faith in him. He is also
employed by microscopists, to show the
circulation of the blood in the web of his
foot; philosophers (whose blood must be as
cold as a frog's) also indicate the cruel means
by which the same wonderful spectacle may
be beheld in his tongue. The latter sight will
certainly not be enjoyed by any one who is
weak enough to feel a tenderness for the
brute creation. The former method (by
distending the web) merely causes the creature
temporary inconvenience and slight pain, if
any. But the readiest way of contemplating
the magnificent phenomenon of the circulation
of the blood made visible,—which has
been compared to the sudden animation of a
geographical map, by their proper motions
being imparted to all the rivers delineated
upon it, from their fountains to their
embouchures, with their tributaries and affluents,—
is to submit the tail of a tadpole to the
microscope. After you have gazed your fill,
you may return him to his native element,
when he will swim away as if nothing had
happened. Even if you despise the life of a
tadpole, and leave him to die of drought on
the slip of glass,—at least you do not torture
him. True, you can't have tadpoles to
exhibit, as you can frogs, at all times of the
year; but you might kindly profit by the
opportunities of April and May. You can
surely spare Mr. Verdant Stickytoes and his
dusky fraternity all unnecessary stretchings
on the rack, by studying circulation less after
the Abyssinian method, in the tails of
tadpoles, the gills of young newts, and the yolk-
bags of new-born fishes.

The genus, of which Mr. Verdant may be
taken as the type, has its representatives in
almost every warm and temperate country of
the globe. In the Reptile House of the Regent's
Park Gardens, a Hyla from New Zealand
may be seen reposing side by side with some
of our present friends from the Pas-de-Calais.
A humpty one is found in the isle of
Lemnos; another in Surinam. America has
a considerable variety of tree-frogs; milky-white,
red, and orange-yellow. None of these
Stickytoes are superior, or equal, to our own
Hyla viridis in their saltatory performances.

Hyla viridis is bright green on the back and
all the upper part of its body, and white
beneath, which portion is entirely covered
with little tubercles. In the males, the
throat is brownish, of different degrees of
depth, especially in spring, while that of the
ladies always remains white and delicate, as
beseems their sex. Their bright eyes have
oblong pupils with orange irides. They are
said not to propagate till they are four years
of age; in which case they must be long-lived
creatures, barring accidents. They have good
reasons for avoiding pools of water; because
water is the resort of ducks, who would
swallow a party of Verdants, whole and
entire, with as much ease as a cabman would
engulph a dozen Milton oysters. One
individual is recorded to have lived eight years
in a jar of water covered with a net. During
summer, they gave him fresh grass, with
flies and gnats for food. In winter, he was
kept in a hothouse, secure from chilly
weather. He was supplied with hay slightly
moistened, and the few flies that could be
found for him, which he awaited
open-mouthed, and seized with surprising address.
Late in the autumn he grumbled evidently
at the rise in the price of flies and spiders,
which grew scarcer every day; and when he
could only get an insect once a week or so,
he grew visibly thinner and weaker.
Nevertheless, with the return of spring and its
winged game, he soon recovered. This Stickytoes
used to croak in his glassy prison, and
was now and then indulged with an exit from
his jar and a jump about the room. And
so he led his damp and contemplative
existence, till in his eighth winter, no flies
being obtainable for love or money, he
languished and died.

Our own Verdants, kept in a warm parlour
all winter, had not the strength left to bear a
voyage across the Channel, except one; who
languished for a time, refusing meal-worms
and such food as could be got for him; but
who now thrives a prosperous frog in the
Reptile House of the Zoological Gardens.
He and his companions had remained
wide awake from October till April,
when they ought to have been asleep:
devouring flies greedily whenever flies were
forthcoming. Other Verdants, wintered in a
cool cellar, returned to the realms of light in
much better condition, Hence it appears that
animals, naturally falling torpid from cold,
dissipate but little of their substance, and
have no need of food; while, if excited by
the stimulus of heat to frequent breathing
and exercise, they require more nourishment
than is to be found at that time of year. It is
only another proof of the harmony of Nature's
operations. In the Reptile House, the Stickytoes
are supplied with mealworms, which
are to be had at all times of the year.

The voice of the Hyla viridis, when heard
in a room, is something astounding in respect
to loudness, as coming from so small a creature.
The captive vocalist may sometimes