In the present instance, the injury to froggie’s feelings thus far partakes more of moral than of physical pain, for the grasp of the snake is not violent, and he finds that the more he struggles the more he injures himself. Yet he kicks and struggles on, at thus being forcibly detained against his will. In the mouth of the snake he is as proportionately large as the shoulder of mutton in the jaws of the dog that has just stolen it from the butcher’s shop. How do the canines manage unwieldy food? The dog can tackle the joint of meat, big though it be, because he has limbs to aid him, and he was prepared for emergencies before he stole it. He knew of a certain deserted yard up a passage close by, and of some lumber stacked there; he watched his opportunity, and is off to his hiding-place; and once hidden behind the lumber, he settles down quietly with his ill-gotten dinner firmly held between his fore-paws, while, with eyes and ears on the alert, he gnaws away. The snake, no doubt, knows of a hole in the bank, or in a hollow tree, in which he can hide if alarmed; but he cannot set his frog down for one instant, nor can he relax his jaws in the slightest degree, or his dinner hops away, and he has to pursue it, or wait for another frog, when the same thing may happen again. He has only his teeth to trust to, and these have all the work of paws and claws, and nails and talons, to accomplish, while yet, not for one instant, must they relinquish their hold. ‘Besides!—how much too big that frog is for Coluber’s small mouth!’ And we continue to gaze in wonderment, filled with amazement that brings us to the bookshelves, to endeavour to comprehend the phenomenon. Not, however, until we have seen the end of that frog on the banks of the stream, where the reader is supposed to be waiting.