112 



BUFONID.E. 



me that whilst the many concurrent assertions of credible 

 persons, who declare themselves to have been witnesses of 

 the emancipation of imprisoned Toads, forbids us hastily to 

 refuse our assent, or at least to deny the possibility of such a 

 circumstance, it must be confessed that we still want better 

 and more cautious evidence, to authorize our implicit belief 

 in these asserted facts. The truth probably is, that a Toad 

 may have lain hid in the hollow of a tree, during perhaps a 

 whole autumn and winter, and found itself on the return of 

 spring so far enclosed within its hiding place as to be unable 

 to escape. As this animal requires but little respiration, and 

 consequently but little food to support life, especially when 

 in a state of entire inactivity, the smallest opening would be 

 sufficient to admit the requisite passage of air, and even the 

 occasional ingress of a small insect ; and afterwards, when the 

 tree was cut up, the Toad may have been found enclosed, 

 and the opening may have escaped detection. To believe 

 that a Toad enclosed within a mass of clay, or other similar 

 substance, shall exist wholly without air or food, for hundreds 

 of years, and at length be liberated alive, and capable of 

 crawling, on the breaking up of the matrix, now become a 

 solid rock, is certainly a demand upon our credulity which 

 few would be ready to answer. 



That Toads may be rendered very tame, and be made to 

 distinguish those who feed and are kind to them, there are 

 abundant facts to testify. I have possessed a very large one 

 which would sit on one of my hands, and eat from the other ; 

 and the story of Mr. Arscott's Toad in Devonshire, related in 

 Pennant's British Zoology, is too well known to need repe- 

 tition. 



The opinions formerly entertained of the properties of the 

 Toad, were pre-eminently absurd. It was highly poisonous, 

 and this not only from its bite ; its breath, and even its glance 

 were fraus^ht with mischief or death. The water which it 



