‘Well, it is an improvement on a boy’s pocket, anyhow,’ returned the erudite man. ‘I rescued it from a boy who had been carrying it about in his pocket for a whole fortnight. His uncle, just from Texas, brought it for him to play with. It _was_ here half an hour ago, for I saw it,’ continued the editor, rummaging a shelf of exchanges for the fourth time. ‘It’s half dead anyhow; for horned toads won’t eat when they’re caught. Do, pray, take a seat.—Why, there he is!’ and down on the floor, in a dusty corner behind a chair which the editor drew out for me, was a poor, pretty little saurian, with a pointed tail, and a cornet of spikes round its head, which gave it a quaint and decorated appearance. ‘It is not a toad after all!’ I ventured to explain; but belief in vernaculars is strong. ‘Maybe it’s a frog, then; there are horned frogs, too, in Texas.’ On a first glance, the reptile has somewhat the appearance of a frog or a toad (with the addition of a tail). Its body was broader for its length than is usual in lizards, and its head was short and flat, looking all the more so for the horny spines, which stood out like a frill. The poor little half-dead thing was too feeble to struggle, and too thickly coated with dust to display any other than mud colour. From its long fast, it was merely skin and skeleton, painfully concave beneath. I gladly accepted it from the editor; and on reaching home gave it a bath, letting it remain in the water, and douching it thoroughly, which seemed to invigorate it, as it tried to crawl out of the basin, and opened a pair of bright black eyes. Gradually, its markings and true colour appeared, and it turned out to be an exceedingly pretty iguanian lizard; but, as my friend the editor had with reason said, it is generally known in Texas as ‘the horned frog’ or ‘the horned toad,’ or scientifically, _Phrynosoma cornutum_.