WALK VII.

REPTILES-FROGS-EDIBLE FROGS-BULL-FROGS-TOADS-TORTOISES

TURTLES-CROCODILES-ALLIGATORS-GUANAS-LIZARDS-NEWTS

SNAKES-RATTLE-SNAKES-BOAS-EVENING.

THE THIRD CLASS in the Linnean System of Zoology is composed of amphibious animals; it is divided into two orders-Reptiles and Serpents. The first order are REPTILES, AND HAVE FEET. dies of all the amphibia are cold, and unclothed; and some of them are armed with a deadly poison.

The bo

One cannot think of reptiles or serpents, without disgust and fear.

This is, indeed, commonly the case; but many of them are exceedingly beautiful, and their construction is wonderful. They have teeth, with which they

seize their food; but they usually swallow it. Their blood is cold; and, though they are tenacious of life, many of them exist a good part of the year in a state of torpor, or suspended animation. The whole order is oviparous, or are produced from eggs.

But does not the Viper bring forth its young alive? It does; but still from eggs, which are hatched within the body of the parent.

But how can they live without breathing?

I cannot tell you; but the fact is unquestionable. It must be very dreadful to live in countries where reptiles abound.

Not so much so as you imagine. The people in America are but very little annoyed by them. Do you not recollect what is said in the first chapter of Genesis; that God has so constituted all animals that they have a fear of man? And we find this to be the case. In proportion as cultivation and civilization extend, the noxious animals retreat. And you know they always choose caverns, dens, and very retired places as their abodes. Besides, we are furnished

with instruments, by which, if they annoy us, they can be easily destroyed.

Yet, I think, it would have been better if God had not created them.

I do not think so. The simple fact that he has thought it good to create them, ought to enforce on us the conclusion, that it was well for him to do so. We may be sure that he has done nothing, and that he does nothing without infinite reason, whether we perceive it or not. One of our poets had good ground for saying,

"Each moss,

Each shell, each crawling insect holds a rank
Important in the plan of Him who fram'd

This scale of beings; holds a rank, which, lost,
Would break the chain, and leave a gap

That Nature's self would rue."

I think I can tell you the names of the reptiles; are they not the Frog, the Tortoise, and the Lizard? They are. There are about fifty species, which are classed in three divisions-the common Frogs,

which throw out their eggs or spawn in a jelly-like

How different the young frog is from the old one! It is; the young one or tadpole has a tail, which drops off the body when the legs grow. The common Frog* lies in a state of torpor through the winter, but comes forth in the spring, and changes its skin; which operation it repeats about once in ten days, during the warm season of the year. It is very prolific; it will produce 800 or 1000 eggs every year.

Rana temporaria.

The tadpoles are formed in about forty days, and, in two months, they are changed into frogs.

The tongue of the frog is wonderfully adapted for securing its prey. Its root, contrary to that of all other animals, is at the front of the mouth; and the tip of it points to the throat. This instrument it darts out with an agility which almost eludes the eye, and transfixes and swallows the insect at the same instant. Whole acres of ground have been seen covered with young frogs, just emerged from their ponds; so that the vulgar have been led to affirm, that they had come down from the clouds in a shower.

A shower of frogs! that would be strange!

The apparatus for breathing is in the mouth, at the root of the tongue; it has two openings in the upper part of its head, by which it inspires the air.

You showed me the circulation of the blood in the leg of a frog some time since; it was a pretty spectacle.

It is very distinctly seen, as the skin of the frog is so thin and transparent.