A history of British reptiles / By Thomas Bell...Illustrated by more than forty woodcuts.

  • Thomas Bell
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of British reptiles / By Thomas Bell...Illustrated by more than forty woodcuts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    planation. About the beginning of the eighteenth century, Dr. Gwythers, a physician, and fellow of the University of Dublin, brought over with him a parcel of Frogs from Eng- land to Ireland, in order to propagate the species in that kingdom, and threw them into the ditches of the University park, but they all perished. Whereupon he sent to Eng- land for some bottles of the Frog spawn, which he threw into those ditches, by which means the species of Frogs was propagated in that kingdom. However, their number was so small in the year 1720, that a Frog was nowhere to be seen in Ireland except in the neighbourhood of the University Park ; but within six or seven years after, they spread thirty, forty, or fifty miles over the country, and so at last by de- grees over the whole nation.’ What credit may be due to the note I will not take upon me to determine, though it appears perfectly circumstantial, and given upon the editor’s personal knowledge ; but Swift’s own notice proves indisput- ably the fact of the introduction, and the period about which it took place.” The respiration in this animal is, as has already been stated, both pulmonary and cutaneous. The former func- tion, that of breathing by lungs, is effected not by successive alternations of contraction and dilatation of the chest,—a movement which, as the Frog possesses no ribs, is impossi- ble,—but by the act of swallowing air, as in the case of the Testudinata before described. The mechanism by which this act is performed is precisely the same in both cases ; the air is inhaled through the nostrils by the dilatation of the pharynx, the esophagus being closed to prevent its passing into the stomach ; then the posterior openings of the nos- trils being also closed by the application of the tongue, the pharynx is contracted, and the air forced into the lungs. These organs are of considerable size, lying on each side of the anterior part of the vertebral column; they consist of