THE COMMON TOAT>, 11 



imbedded in tbese retreats for a thousand years — the living relics of a 

 world gone by, and coeval with the rock around them, which stories are 

 mere imaginations of the brain. Virgil says — 



"And Toads in crannies found." 



Superstition and credulity are by no means confined to the vulgar and 

 illiterate; the minds of the better informed are often biased by such in- 

 fluence. That they are frequently found in hollows of trees and rocks, 

 we are perfectly satisfied, having found them in such places ourselves; but 

 there has always been some small aperture more or less communicating with 

 the external surface, by which they have received air and nourishment. 

 In all the accounts which we have read of the discovery of imbedded 

 Toads and Rats in wood, stone, and coal, the discoverers have paid more 

 attention to the appearance of the Toad than to the minutis9 of the cavity 

 in which it was contained; no doubt the blow of the hammer or the axe 

 which set them at liberty destroyed all trace of the orifice or fissure 

 which admitted them, and through which they receive food and air till they 

 grew too large to make their exit. From experiments made by ourselves, 

 we have arrived at the conclusion that the Toad cannot exist a year totally 

 excluded from atmospheric air and food. Here, however, let it be observed 

 that we are open to conviction. 



We have now arrived at another very interesting point in the history 

 of the Toad, namely, its manner of birth; and what we have to advance 

 on this disputed subject shall be brief The Toad is not only oviparous, 

 but viviparous, according to circumstances; and there does not seem to 

 be anything in this theory so difficult to admit, as some writers have 

 asserted, when it is remembered that Aphidne and some of the Muscidce 

 are endowed with the same power. Moreover, the German naturalists have 

 asserted that some Lizards and Snakes become viviparous when they are 

 confined to dry situations. In the same manner, when Toads are secluded 

 from water they are no longer oviparous, but viviparous; as any one scep- 

 tical on this point may prove to his own satisfaction, if he has the power 

 to throw ofi" his absurd idea of horror and cruel insults and persecutions to 

 which the poor Toad has been subjected, from the days of yEsop to the 

 present day. 



The popular belief in the poisonous qualities of the Toad has some truth 

 in it. The milky secretion contained in the dorsal and parotid pustules is 

 a thick, viscous, yellowish liquid, smelling very strong and acrid, and is 

 intolerably bitter. In order to prove the poisonous qualities of this secre- 

 tion, we tried the effects on two small birds — the Sparrow and the Chaf- 

 finch, and found they died without convulsions in ten minutes. We also 

 find that M. M. Pierre Gratiolet and S. Cloez, in the "Comtes Rendus," 

 have proved by a series of experiments that this milky secretion is poisonous 



