BUFOAMERICANUS. 77 



times their music is very familiar, consisting of a prolonged trill, continued by 

 different individuals both day and night, and not unpleasant vihen at a sufficient 

 distance. 



The Toad is looked upon with aversion by the greater part of mankind; 

 its SAvollen body, its warty and tuberculous skin, with the large post-tympanal 

 glands, give it such a repulsive appearance, that it seems hard to believe an 

 innocuous disposition can belong to a shape and colour so offensive to the eye; 

 hence the vulgar have always considered it venomous: it is nevertheless perfectly 

 harmless, destroying only the insects that nature has apportioned for its food. 

 To an unhandsome exterior, however, it often owes its safety, being very abundant 

 and entirely helpless. 



It has been commonly supposed that the humour exuding from the skin and 

 glands is poisonous, yet no experiments have proved it so, and certainly no injury 

 has ever arisen from handling or examining the animal. Experiments have been 

 made in Europe with the secretions of the common toad of that continent, and 

 apparently with different results; for Naturahsts are still at variance — Laurenti* 

 considered the exudation innocuous, while Okent believes it poisonous, and his 

 opinion is supported by some interesting experiments of Davy,J which prove that 

 "the skin of the European Toad is possessed of minute follicles, secreting a thick 

 yellow fluid of a poisonous nature." 



General Remarks. Leconte was the first to separate this toad both from the 

 southern animal, with which it had been confounded, and from the conamon Euro- 

 pean species, to which it had been considered similar. It differs from the former 

 in having the superciliary ridges depressed, and from the latter in the shape of 

 the head, post-tympanal glands, &c. 



* Laurenti, Synop. Rep. p. 195. t Oken, Zool, B. II., § 198. 



% Dr. Davy, Phil. Trans, for 1826, Part II., p. 127. 



