Extracts from the Minute-Book of the Linncan Society. (\\\) 



To see the Toad display its full energy of character, it 

 is necessary to discover it in its place of retirement for 

 the day, and, if possible, unperecived to drop an in- 

 sect within its sight: it immediately arouses from its 

 apparent torpor, its beautiful eyes sparkle, it moves 

 with alacrity to its prey, and assumes a degree of ani- 

 mation incompatible with its genera] sluggish appear- 

 ance. When arrived at a proper distances it makes a 

 full stop, and, in the attitude of a pointer, motionless 

 eyes its destined victim for a few seconds, when it darts 

 out its tongue upon it, and lodges it in it-> throat 

 with a velocity which the eye can scarcely follow. It 

 sometimes happens to make an ineffectual stroke, and 

 stuns the insect without £or<2;in<>; it, but never makes a 

 second stroke until the insect resumes motion. It uni- 

 formly refuses to feed on dead insects, however recent 

 For several years aToad took up its abode during the 

 summer season under an inverted garden-pot, which 

 had a part of its rim broken out, m the writer's gar- 

 den, making its first appearance in the latter end of 

 May, and retreating about the middle of September. 

 This Toad, there is reason to believe, distinguished the 

 persons of the family, who daily fed it, from stran- 

 gers ; as it would permit them to pat and stroke it. 

 To try the indiscriminating appetite of these animals, 

 the writer has dropped before a full-grown Toad a young 

 one of its own species, about three-fourths of an inch 

 long, and the instant it began to move off, it was eagerly 

 struck at and swallowed ; but the writer, in repeating 

 this experiment, found that more will refuse than de- 

 vour the young of their own species. When living 

 minows (Cyprinus Phoxinus) were dropped before a 



Toad, 



