I have seen in America a number of drinking-mugs of cream-colored ware, which may properly be spoken of here, though it is doubtful whether many of them were made in Liverpool. They have the raised figure of a toad or frog placed inside, with the pleasingly jocose intention of surprising and scaring the drinker, who would fancy as the ugly head rose out of the decreasing liquor that it was a real batrachian climbing up the side to jump down his throat. One of these mugs had the frog tinted a dull green and brown, entirely too natural and life-like in color to prove pleasant or appetizing. Another two-handled Frog mug was of coarse white ware, unpainted, and had an exceedingly modern look. This was probably Newcastle ware. The price asked for these in “antique shops” is usually three or four dollars apiece. I have seen none with mottoes as has the one numbered S 17, in the Museum of Practical Geology. “Though malt and venom Seem united, Don’t break my pot Nor be affrighted.” These Frog mugs are usually large in diameter, and are sometimes decorated externally with designs of ships or naval heroes. The frog’s appearance in sight would then prove more effectually terrifying than if the drinker were warned by an instructive motto of the figured reptile within. Another agreeable old English practical joke is in the shape of puzzle jugs, specimens of which exist in England, but have been rarely found in America. They were made in Liverpool and Staffordshire in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, and in salt-glazed stone-ware at Nottingham in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were so constructed that when lifted to the lips they emptied by secret passages their liquid contents over the face and breast of the drinker. Sometimes there were three spouts from the rim. If the drinker covered two of the spouts with his fingers, he could drink from the third. This motto is on a puzzle jug of earthenware, of Liverpool make, in the collection of George M. Wales, Esq., of Boston: “Here, gentlemen, come try y^r skill; Ill hold a wager, if you will, That you don’t drink this liq^r all Without you spill or let some fall.” Another rhyming inscription reads: “From mother earth I took my birth, Then form’d a Jug by Man, And now I stand here filled with good cheer— Taste of me if you can.” Another short invitation reads: “This ale is good, taste.” And when you tasted, in good faith, you received a beery shower-bath, which was no doubt considered very funny by eighteenth-century Englishmen. On another is written: “Mathew the V 16.” —not a very appropriate text-reference. Still another rhyming challenge reads thus: