118 OUR REPTILES. 



The venomous character of the toad seems to 

 have been a firm belief of the ancients; but they 

 had, at the same time, very erroneous opinions of 

 the " toad's envenomed juice," assigned to it, a 

 power and an action far different to what it 

 possesses. ^Elian regarded the toad as capable of 

 conveying death in its look and breath; and Juvenal 

 records of the Koman dames that they infused the 

 venom of the toad in wine, to form a draught 

 whereby to rid themselves of their husbands. Our 

 own Shakespeare used it as a compound of the 

 witches' caldron in " Macbeth " : — 



Toad, that under coldest stone, 

 Days and nights hast thirty-one 

 Sweltered venom sleeping got, 

 Boil thou first i' th' charmed pot. 



Even Pennant, with all his repugnancy to the 

 toad, could not be induced to favour the popular 

 belief in its poisonous character. 



We shall now return (he writes) to the notion of its being a 

 poisonous animal, and deliver as our opinion, that its excessive 

 deformity, joined to the faculty it has of emitting a juice from 

 its pimples, and a dusky liquid from its hind parts, is the founda- 

 tion of the report. That it has any noxious qualities we have 

 been unable to bring proofs in the smallest degree satisfactory, 

 though we have heard many strange relations on that point. 

 On the contrary, we know several of our friends who have taken 

 them in their naked hands, and held them long, without receiving 

 the least injury, It is also well known that quacks have eaten 

 them, and have besides squeezed their juices into a glass and 

 drank them with impunity. In a word, we may consider the 



