In the Anurous Batrachians there are lachrymal glands, end the tunica conjunctiva is so pierced as to permit the tears to run into the cavity of the mouth.

Reproduction. The male organs of generation in the Anurous Batrachians consist of true testicles situated in the cavity of the abdomen below the kidneys, and the deferent canals terminate in the cloaca, there being no external male organ. The ovaries in the females correspond in situation with that of the testicles of the males, and are of considerable volume. Their free extremity forms a sort of trumpet-shaped opening, and the oviduct terminates in the cloaca, whence the eggs are excluded. Blumenbach describes the frogs of his country as having a large uterus divided by an internal partition into two cavities, from which two long convoluted oviducts arise, and terminate by open orifices at the sides of the heart. The ovaria, he says, lie under the liver, so that it is difficult to conceive how the eggs get into the above-mentioned openings. The uterus, he adds, opens into the cloaca. The toads, according to him, have not the large uterus; but their oviducts terminate by a common tube in the cloaca.

At the season of reproduction, besides the vocal manifestations, there are others which visibly distinguish the male in many of the Anurous Batrachians. At each croak, the male green frogs project from the commissure of the mouth two globular bladders into which the air is introduced and the throat swells and becomes coloured. In the males of the red frog the thumbs of the anterior feet become considerably swollen and covered by a black and rugose skin at this period. The usual mode of union of the male and female, which generally takes place in the water, is too well known to require description; the former excites the latter to exclude the eggs, and fecundates them as they are protruded. These eggs are enveloped in a sort of delicate, mucous, permeable membrane; they are, when excluded, most frequently agglomerated either in glutinous masses or chaplets, and increase considerably after they are plunged in the water. There are however some curious modifications of the disposition of the eggs in certain species of the Anurous Batrachians. The accoucheur toad (Bufo Obstetricans of Laurenti), for instance, assists the female in excluding the chaplets of eggs, and disposes them round his thighs, something in the form of a figure of 8. He is then said to carry them about till the eyes of the embryo become visible. At the proper period for hatching, he conveys his progeny to some stagnant piece of water, and deposits them, when the eggs break and the tadpole comes forth and swims about. The male Pipa, or Surinam toad, as soon as the eggs are laid, places them on the back of the female, and fecundates them. The female (see the cuts at the end of this article) then takes to the water, and the skin of her back swells, and forms cellules, in which the eggs are hatched, and where the young pass their tadpole state, for they do not quit their domicile till after the loss of their tail and the development of their legs; at this period the mother leaves the water, and returns to dry land.

Swammerdam gives the number of eggs in a female frog as 1400, and M. de Montbeillard counted 1300. In these eggs there is a greenish albumen which is not easily coagulable. The yolk or vitellus is absorbed by the embryo, and an abdominal cicatrice indicates the umbilicus in young individuals. It is not rare to meet with double germs in a single egg, but most of these prove abortive, though some give birth to monsters with two heads, six legs, and two tails, as well as to hermaphrodites. The act of copulation is of considerable duration, both in the Chelonians and Anurous Batrachians; and is recorded as being prolonged from a period of eighteen days to thirty-one and upwards before the male quits the female. There seems to be a preponderance of males over females; and to this most probably may be ascribed the frequent occurrence of frogs and toads sticking on the heads of fishes, such as carp and tench. In our climates, the early part of the spring is the season of reproduction, when the frogs and toads of both sexes quit the localities of their late hybernation and their ordinary haunts, and move instinctively to those stagnant waters which are proper for their purpose, and where they are then collected in swarms.

The young Anurous Batrachian enters life under an entirely different form from that which it is afterwards to assume; and undergoes, like the insects, a series of metamorphoses or transformations till it arrives at its perfect state. In their first stage, the voung have an elongated body,

a laterally compressed tail and external branchiæ; their small mouth is furnished with horny hooks or teeth for the separation of vegetables, and they have a small tube on the lower lip by which they attach themselves to aquatic plants, &c. The external branchia next disappear, and become covered with a membrane, being placed in a sort of sac under the throat; and the animal then, as we have observed when treating of its respiration, breathes after the manner of fishes. The head, which is furnished with eyes and nostrils, is confounded with the large globular trunk distended with the great extent of the digestive canal, and it has a large tail for swimming. In this state it is called in English a tadpole, and in French têtard, from the great apparent volume of the head. Soon the posterior limbs are gradually put forth near the origin of the tail, and are developed first; the anterior feet then begin to show them selves; the tail gradually becomes less and less, shortens, shrinks, and seems at last to be absorbed; the mouth widens, and looses its horny processes or jaws; the eyes are guarded by eye-lids; the belly lengthens and diminishes in comparative size; the intestines become short; the true lungs are developed, and the internal branchiæ are obliterated; the circulation undergoes an entire change; and the animal, hitherto entirely aquatic and herbivorous, becomes carnivorous, and for the most part terrestrial.

Mr. Thomas Wharton Jones (Zool. Proc., March, 1837) observes, that when the right gill of the tadpole disappears, it is not, as is usually supposed, by the closure of the fissure through which it protrudes, but by the extension of the opercular fold on the right side towards that of the left, forming but a single fissure, common to the two branchial cavities, through which the left gill still protrudes. He also remarks, that conditions analogous to those which occur during several stages of this process exist in the branchial fissures of the anguilliform genera, Sphagebranchus, Monopterus, and Synbranchus.

In the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons there are numerous instructive preparations illustrative of the reproductive function in the Anurous Batrachians; they are at present unnumbered, but their numbers will be soon attached, and their descriptions published in the fourth volume of the Physiological Series' (Gallery). In this interesting collection will be found the male organs in Rana, Bufo, and Pipa (Asterodactylus of Wagler), and the female organs in the same genera, both in the unexcited and procreative state. There is a very complete series of the metamorphic stages of Rana paradoxa, with dissections demonstrative of the internal branchiæ, the convoluted intestine, and the rudimental extremities. We would particularly draw the student's attention to a female Pipa with the cells fully developed, containing the tadpoles in different stages, and a section showing that the cells are only skin deep, and that the cutis is separated from the subjacent muscles by large lymphatic reservoirs. Another female specimen shows the cells in progress to disappearance after their function has been performed.

Particular Excretions.-The alleged venom of the common toad, so long a subject of popular belief, had been rejected by many modern naturalists, among whom Cuvier may be particularly mentioned. Dr. Davy however found the venomous matter to be contained in follicles, chiefly in the true skin and about the head and shoulders, but also distributed generally over the body and on the extremities. Pressure causes this fluid to exude or even spirt out to a considerable distance, and a sufficient quantity may be thus collected for examination. Dr. Davy found it extremely acrid when applied to the tongue, resembling the extract of aconite in this respect; and it even acts upon the hands. With a small residuum it is soluble in water and in alcohol: acetate of lead and corrosive sublimate do not affect the solutions. It remains acrid on solution in ammonia; and when dissolved in nitric acid, it imparts a purple colour to it. Combined with potash or soda, it becomes less acrid, apparently in consequence of partial decomposition. It is highly inflammable as left by evaporation of its aqueous or alcoholic solutions; and the residuum which appears to give it consistence seems to be albumen. More acrid than the poison of the most venomous serpents, it produces no ill effect when introduced into the circulation. A chicken inoculated with it was not affected. Dr. Davy conjectures that this sweltered venom' is a defence to the toad from carnivorous animals; and we have seen a dog, when urged to attack one without hesitation, drop the animal from

separated into two suborders according to their habits, the first being the Aquiparous, and the second the Dorsigerous (Pipa). Mr. Gray (1825, 1831) considers the Amphibia a separate class, and, like Fitzinger (1826), divides them into those which undergo a metamorphosis and those which do not. He subdivides the Ranide into the genera Rana, Ceratophrys, Hyla, Bufo, Rhinella, Dactylethra, Bombinator, Strombus, Breviceps, and Asterodactylus (Wagler), or the Pipas. In 1835 he introduced to the Zoological Society a toad (Bombinator Australis) from Swan River, observing that the form had not been previously met with out of Europe.

The zoological divisions of MM. Carus and Ficinus appeared about the same time, and they adopt, with regard to the Reptiles, very nearly the classification of Merrem and the views of Oken, whose works were published in 1809, 1816, and 1821.

Dr. Harlan, in 1825, published his account of the American Reptiles, which he divides into Batrachians, Ophidians, Saurians, and Chelonians. Several species of the Caudated Batrachians are enumerated, and they are followed by the Tailless Batrachians, as Rana, Bufo, Hyla.

Mr. Haworth, in his dichotomous or binary method (1825), divides the Batrachia into Apoda and Pedata: the latter he subdivides into Salientia, as Pipa, Hyla, Bufo, Bombinator, Breviceps, Rana; and Gradientia, which he subdivides into the Mutabilia (those which undergo a metamorphosis, Salamandre for instance) and the Immutabilia (those which do not, Proteus and the Sirens).

Fitzinger (1826) separates the Reptiles into the Monopnoa and Dipnoa, and the latter he subdivides into-1, the Mutabilia; 2, the Immutabilia. In the first subdivision are found the Ranoids, the Bufonoids, the Bombinatoroïds, the Pipoids, and the Salamandroids. The four first embrace the whole of the Anurous Batrachians. The Pipoids are characterized as having no tongue, an organ which exists in the three other families. In the Bombinatoroids the tympanum is hidden, whilst it is perceptible in the Bufonoids, which have no teeth, and are thus distinguished from the Ranoïds, where the teeth are distinct.

Ritgen (1828) divides the Anurous Batrachians or Pygomolgi into the Tree-Frogs, Bdallipodobatrachians; the Frogs, Phyllopodobatrachians; and the Toads, Diadactylobatrachians.

The system of Wagler (1830) takes organization as the basis of its arrangement, and he makes the class Amphibia consist of eight orders, viz.: the Tortoises, the Crocodilians, the Lizards, the Serpents, the Orvets, the Cecilias, the Frogs, and the Ichthyodes.

He then characterizes the seventh order, that of the Frogs (Rana), as having no penis, and undergoing a metamorphosis; and divides them into two families, the first consisting of those without a tongue (Aglossa), and the second of those which possess a tongue (Phaneroglossa). The first of these consists of but one genus, Asterodactylus (Pipa); the rest of the genera of the Anurous Batrachians belong to the second. Such are Xenopus (Wagler), Microps (Wagler), Calamita (Fitzinger), Hypsiboas (Wagler), Auletris (Wagler), Hyas (Wagler), Phyllomedusa (Wagler), Scinax (Wagler), Dendrobates (Wagler), Phyllodytes (Wagler), Enydrobius (Wagler), Cystignathus (Wagler), Rana (Linnæus), Pseudis (Wagler), Ceratophrys (Boïé), Megalophrys (Kuhl), Hemiphractus (Wagler), Systoma (Wagler), Chaunus (Wagler), Paludicola (Wagler), Pelobates (Wagler), Alytes (Wagler), Bombinator (Merrem), Bufo (Linnæus), Brachycephalus (Fitzinger).

Müller (1832) divides the Amphibia into two great orders, the Scaly and the Naked. The Anurous Batrachians belong of course to the latter. He thus places the characters of the two orders in opposition to each other.

Engystoma marmoratum

India.

Pipa monstrosa, Laurenti (Asterodactylus of Wagler), Surinam Toad, female, reduced. The upper figure shows the disposition of the cells, and their situation in the skin, which is turned back, and the muscle seen below. The small separate figures are tadpoles, in different stages of development.

Hyla bicolor (half nat. size). South America.

FOSSIL FROGS.

Fossil frogs have been found in the coal-formation of the Rhine (Papier-kohl) in company with the fishes Leuciscus macrurus and L. papyraceus. Two species have been described, and there are many examples in the museum at Bonn. In this country specimens are to be found in the collections of Lord Cole and Sir Philip Egerton, bart.

FROGSBIT, the common name of a wild water-plant, called Hydrocharis Morsus Ranæ.

FROISSART (JEAN, or JOHN), was born at Valenciennes about 1337. He was the son, as is conjectured from a passage in his poems, of Thomas Froissart, a heraldpainter, no inconsiderable profession in the days of chivalry. The youth of Froissart, from twelve years upwards, as he himself informs us, was spent in every species of elegant indulgence. In the midst of his dissipation however, he early discovered the ardent and inquisitive spirit to which we owe so much; and even at the age of twenty, at the command of his dear lord and master, Sir Robert of Namur, lord of Beaufort,' he began to write the history of the French wars. The period from 1326 to 1356 was chiefly filled up from the chronicles of Jean le Bel, canor of Liège, a confident of John of Hainault, and celebrate by Froissart for his diligence and accuracy. It is reasonable to believe that this work was interrupted during a journey to England in the train of Philippa of Hainault the heroic wife of Edward III., and mother of the Black Prince. Froissart was for three or four years secretary, r clerk of her chamber, a situation which he would probably have retained but for a deep-rooted passion for a lady of Flanders, which induced him to return to that country; a circumstance equally favourable to the history of the Continent, and unfortunate for that of Britain. During his residence in England he visited the Scottish mountains, which he traversed on a palfrey, carrying his own portmanteau, and attended only by a greyhound. His character of historian and poet introduced him to the court of David II, and to the hardly less honourable distinction of fifteen days' abode at the castle of Dalkeith with William, ear! of Douglas, where he learned personally to know the race of heroes whose deeds he has repeatedly celebrated. He was in France at Melun-sur-Seine about April 20th, 1366; perhaps private reasons might have induced him to take that road to Bordeaux, where he was on All Saints' day of that year, when the princess of Wales was brought to bed of a son, who was afterwards Richard II. The prince of Wales setting out a few days afterwards for the war in Spain against Henry the Bastard, Froissart accompanied him to Dax, where the prince resided some time. He had expected to attend him during the continuance of this great expedition, but the prince would not permit him to go farther; and shortly after his arrival sent him back to the queen his mother. Froissart could not have made any long stay in England, since in the following year, 1368, he was at different Italian courts. It was this same year that Lionel, duke of Clarence, son of the king of England, espoused Joland, daughter of Galeas II., duke of Milan. Froissart, who probably was in his suite, was present at the magnificent reception which Amadeus, count of Savoy, surnamed the Count Verd, gave him on his return: he describes the feasts on this occasion, and does not forget to tell us that they danced a virelay of his composition. From the court of Savoy he returned to Milan, where the same count Amadeus gave him a good cotardie, a sort of coal, with twenty florins of rold; from thence he went to Bologna

and Ferrara, where he received forty ducats from the king of Cyprus, and thence to Rome. Instead of the modest equípage he travelled with into Scotland, he was now like a man of importance, travelling on a handsome horse, attended by a hackney. It was about this time that Froissart experienced a loss which nothing could recompensethe death of queen Philippa, which took place in 1369. He composed a lay on this melancholy event, of which, however, he was not a witness; for he says, in another place, that in 1395 it was twenty-seven years since he had seen England. According to Vossius and Bullart, he wrote the life of queen Philippa; but this assertion is not founded on any proofs.

Independently of the employment of clerk of the chamber to the queen of England, which Froissart had held, he had been also of the household of Edward III., and even of that of John king of France. Having however lost his patroness, he did not return to England, but went into his own country, where he obtained the living of Lestines. Of all that he performed during the time he exercised this ministry, he tells us nothing more than that the tavernkeepers of Lestines had five hundred franes of his money in the short space of time he was their rector. It is mentioned in a manuscript journal of the bishop of Chartres, chancellor to the duke of Anjou, that, according to letters sealed December 12, 1381, this prince caused to be seized fifty-six quires of the Chronicle' of Froissart, rector of the parish of Lestines, which the histortan had sent to be illuminated, and then to be forwarded to the king of England, the enemy of France. Froissart attached himself afterwards to Wenceslaus of Luxembourg, duke of Brabant, perhaps in quality of secretary. This prince, who had a taste for poetry, commissioned Froissart to make a collection of his songs, rondeaus, and virelays; and Froissart, adding some of his own pieces to those of the prince, formed a sort of romance, under the title of 'Meliador; or, the Knight of the Sun; but the duke did not live to see the completion of the work, for he died in 1384.

Immediately after this event, Froissart found another patron in Guy count de Blois, who made him clerk of his chapel, for which Froissart testified his gratitude by a pastoral and epithalamium on a marriage in the family. He passed the years 1385, 1386, and 1387 sometimes in the Blaisois, sometimes in Touraine; but the count de Blois having engaged him to continue his history, which he left unfinished, he determined in 1388 to take advantage of the peace which was just concluded to visit the court of Gaston Phoebus count de Foix, in order to gain full information of whatever related to foreign countries and the more distant provinces of the kingdom. His journey to Ortez, the chief residence of the count de Foix, in company with Sir Espaing du Lyon, is one of the most interesting parts of Froissart's Chronicle. The count de Foix (of whom we have already spoken in a former article) received and admitted him as a member of his household. Here Froissart used to entertain Gaston after supper by reading to him the romance of 'Meliador,' which he had brought with him. After a long sojourn at the court of Ortez he returned to Flanders by the route of Avignon. We learn from a poem referred to by Monsieur de St. Palaye, that on this occasion the his torian, always in quest of adventures, met a personal one with which he could have dispensed, being robbed of all the ready money which his travels had left him. After a series of journeys into different countries for the sake of obtaining information, we find him in 1390 in his own country, solely occupied in the completion of his history, at least until 1393, when he was again at Paris. From the year 1378 he had obtained from pope Clement VII. the reversion of a canonry at Lille, and in the collection of his poetry, which was completed in 1393, and elsewhere, he calls himself canon of Lille; but pope Clement dying in 1394, he gave up his expectations of the reversion, and began to qualify himself as canon and treasurer of the collegiate church of Chimay, which he probably owed to the friendship of the count de

Blois

nobles. He finally settled at his benefice of Chimay, and employed as usual the hours of his leisure in arranging and detailing the information collected in his travels. Four years brought him to 1399, when the melancholy fate of his benefactor Richard II. became the subject of his latest labours. It is uncertain how long Froissart survived the death of Richard and the conclusion of his 'Chronicle;' he was then about sixty years old, and died shortly after at Chimay, according to an entry in the obituary of the chapter.

The period of history embraced in Froissart's Chronicle' is from 1326 to 1400. The best of the old editions of the original is that of Lyon, in four volumes, in folio, 1559. The latest is that in the Collection des Chroniques Nationales Françaises, avec Notes et Eclaircissements, par J. A. Buchon,' in fifteen volumes, 8vo., Paris, 1824-1826. Froissart's Chronicle' seems to have been first printed at Paris by Ant. Verard, without date, 4 vols. in folio, and was reprinted by Guill. Eustace, Par. 1514. There are two English translations; one by Bourchier lord Berners, made at the high commandment' of king Henry VIII., fol. Lond., Pinson, 1525-6; reprinted in two volumes, 4to., Lond, 1812, under the editorial care of E. V. Utterson, Esq.; the other, with additions from many celebrated MSS.,' translated by Thomas Johnes, Esq., appeared from the Hafod press,' in four volumes, 4to., 1803-1805.

The principal particulars of Froissart's life have been here condensed from that by St. Palaye, translated and edited by Mr. Johnes, 8vo., Lond., 1801, and revised and re-published in 4to., Hafod, 1810.

There are several splendidly illuminated manuscripts of Froissart's Chronicle,' quite or nearly contemporary, preserved in the British Museum: one a complete copy, belonging to the old royal library of the kings of England, 14 D. ii.-vi. ; another consisting of the second and fourth books in the same collection, 18 E. i. and ii. ; a third in the Harleian Library, MSS. 4379 and 4380, containing the fourth book only; the fourth copy is in the Arundel collection lately transferred from the library of the Royal Society, No. 97, containing the first, second, and third books; but this MS. is mutilated, and has lost many of its illuminations. FROME, a town in the parish of Frome Selwood and hundred of Frome, and in the county of Somerset, 105 miles west-by-south from London. It is agreeably situated on the river Frome, a branch of the AVON, and on the north-east declivity of several hills contiguous to the forest of Selwood, whence the town is frequently called FromeSelwood. It is lighted with gas, but irregularly built, and the streets are narrow and ill-paved. The borough of Frome was not represented before the passing of the Reform Act; it now returns one member. It is not incorporated. It was formerly governed by a bailiff, but is now under the superintendence of the county magistrates. Frome is in the diocese of Bath and Wells. The parish church, dedicated to St. John Baptist, is a handsome structure, surmounted by a quadrangular tower with a neat stone spire. The average net income of the vicarage is 7207.; patron, the marquis of Bath. The town is said to be prospering, and contains several extensive manufactures of woollen cloth, mills for rolling iron, and some considerable breweries. According to the census taken in 1831, its population was 11,240. There is a grammar-school of the foundation of Edward VI., besides several other institutions, among which is a good charity-school. The mar ket-day is Wednesday. The cattle-fairs are held 24th February, 22nd July, 14th September, and 25th November.

(Carlisle's Top. Dict.; Collinson's Hist. and Ant. of the County of Somerset, Bath, 1791; Beauties of England ana Wales; Parliamentary Papers, &c.)

FROME, river. [SOMERSETSHIRE.]

FROND, a botanical term intended to .express such organs as are composed of a stem and a leaf combined; the leaves of ferns and palms were thought to be of this nature; but as it is now known that the leaves of such plants are in no important respect different from those of other plants, the term frond has ceased to have any precise meaning, and is disused by the best botanists.

FRONDE, the name of a political faction in France during the minority of Louis XIV., which was hostile to the prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin, and to the queen regent, who supported him. In consequence of some disputes between the parliament of Paris and the court, on the occasion of some new taxes levied by the minister, the car VOL. X.-3 S