126 OUR REPTILES. 



This creature is far more terrestrial in its habits 

 than the frog, yet its ova are deposited and de- 

 veloped in water ; and the first six months of its 

 career it is as aquatic as a fish. The eggs are 

 arranged in long double chains, and not deposited 

 in a mass, as is the case with the frog. There 

 appears to be very little difference between them in 

 their early stages. The ova are deposited two or 

 three weeks later ; the tadpoles are similar but 

 darker, pass through the like stages, and, in the 

 autumn, having attained their legs and lost their 

 tails, they venture upon the land, as miniature 

 toads, and commence their terrestrial life. In this 

 state they crawl about in search of their prey, 

 neither running with the natterjack, nor leaping 

 with the frog, but less vivacious than either, and 

 more persecuted than both. 



We have alluded to the incarceration of frogs in 

 blocks of granite, &c, and, out of courtesy to the 

 toad, which deserves as much at our hands, subjoin 

 from the Leeds Mercury, an account there given of 

 a truly patriarchal toad, at least if the assumptions 

 of its historian are true : — 



Daring the excavations which are being carried out under the 

 superintendence of Mr. James Yeal, of Dyke House Quay, in 

 connection with the Hartlepool Waterworks, the workmen on 

 Friday morning found a toad embedded in a block of magnesian 

 limestone, at a depth of twenty-five feet from the surface of the 

 earth, and eight feet from any spring-water vein. The block of 



