statement.—Adam J. Corrie, J.W. Kimber, M.A. Kimber (Lansdown Grove Hotel, Bath).
[We publish the foregoing as received. We are informed by Mr. Tegetmeier that the proprietors of the 'Field' have for very many years offered a reward of £1, and for the last three years of £5, for a Viper seen to swallow its young and received dead with the young inside; but the reward has not yet been claimed. The young Vipers burst from the egg with all their powers perfect, and escape rapidly into the grass directly they are disturbed, so rapidly that the bystander concludes they must have disappeared down the mother's throat. No case of Vipers swallowing young has ever been observed at the Zoological Gardens at Regent's Park.—Ed.]
AMPHIBIA.
Abnormal Eyes of Hyla arborea and Bombinator igneus.—I recently purchased a small Tree Frog (Hyla arborea), and sent it to a friend who was interested in batrachians. A few days later he informed me that the Frog was blind in one eye. A strong light having been thrown into the eye, I carefully examined the interior of the diseased organ with a powerful lens. The iris was widely dilated, normal in colour. The whole of the interior of the eye was transparent like glass, and behind this was a greyish surface, showing no trace of blood-vessels. The affected eye was twice the size of the normal one, and the animal was continually closing the eyelid over it. The increase in size of the eye was most marked in the portion nearer the ear. I have similarly examined a normal Tree Frog, but merely obtained an image of the light reflected from the anterior surface of the cornea, the interior of the eye appearing black with no transparency. The nature of the disease in the Frog's eye is a puzzle to me. From a careful dissection of a Toad's eye it would seem that the greyish appearance seen in the diseased eye was the normal retina, so that the anterior portion of the eye seems to be at fault. The Frog is lively, and takes flies readily. As a contrast to the above, I may mention a specimen of Bombinator igneus which I kept for some time, in which one eye was curiously small, much smaller than the other. I attributed this to arrest in the normal development of the eye.—Graham Renshaw (Sale Bridge House, Sale, Manchester).
