FROGS, TOADS AND SO^IE FRESH-WATER FISH. 171 



for the wonderful gem-like eye. It is Shakespeare who has said, 



the toad, ugly and venomous. 



Wears yet a precious jewel in fiis head. 

 referring doubtless to the creature's wonderful eye. 



To which, if either, of these species a very large toad that I have 

 frequently come across belongs I do not know. This variety is 

 remarkable both for its size and the great number and size of the 

 worts upon its skin. 



Radde's Toad (Bufo raddei). 



I have never yet come across anything like the newts or salaman- 

 ders in North China, though some members of this group exist further 

 south, notably the giant salamander {Megatohatrachus ninximus) of 

 Central and West China, where it occurs in the mountain streams. 

 This large and ugly creature was one of the numerous discoveries of 

 Armand David, and it is very rare. Doubtless the same unfavour- 

 able climatic conditions that seem to account for the poverty in the 

 reptilian forms of life, also have an unfavourable effect upon the 

 batrachians. 



Turning from these semi-aquatic denizens of the swamps and 

 rivers, we come to a much more richly represented group of cold blooded 



