NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 51 
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I have been informed also, from undoubted authority, that some 
ladies (ladies you will say of peculiar taste) took a fancy to a toad, 
which they nourished summer after summer, for many years, till he 
grew to a monstrous size, with the maggots which turn to flesh-flies. 
The reptile used to come forth every evening from a hole under the 
garden-steps ; and was taken up, after supper, on the table to be 
fed. But at last a tame raven, kenning him as he put forth his 
head, gave him such a severe stroke with his horny beak as put 
out one eye. After this accident the creature languished for some 
time and died. 
I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive reading of the 
excellent account there is from Mr. Derham, in Ray’s “ Wisdom of 
God in the Creation”’ (p. 365), concerning the migration of frogs 
from their breeding ponds. Inthisaccount he at once subverts that 
foolish opinion of their dropping from the clouds in rain ; showing 
that it is from the grateful coolness and moisture of those showers 
that they are tempted to set out on their travels, which they defer 
till those fall. Frogs areas yet in their tadpole state ; but, in a few 
weeks, our lanes, paths, fields, will swarm for a few days with 
myriads of those emigrants, no larger than my little finger nail. 
Swammerdam gives a most accurate account of the method and 
situation in which the male impregnates the spawn of the female. 
How wonderful is the economy of Providence with regard to the 
limbs of so vile a reptile! While it is an aquatic it has a fish-like 
tail, and no legs: as soon as the legs sprout, the tail drops off as 
useless, and the animal betakes itself to the land! 
secretion of saliva in the mouth of a dog, and evidently gives pain. Mr. Herbert says a 
pike will seize a toad, but immediately disgorges it, while a frog is swallowed. 
There has always been an aversion or disgust at toads. The older poets clothed him in 
a garb ‘‘ ugly and venomous,” and one of our master-bards has likened the Evil Spirit to 
ol as a semblance of all that is devilish or disgusting. 
Him they found 
Squat Zhe a toad, close at the ear of Eve, 
Assaying with all his devilish art to reach 
The organs of her fancy. 
Thus we are taught, and the feeling is handed down from family to family, to loathe a 
harmless animal. The bite is innocent of any after consequences, and we never saw a toad 
attempt to bite. The exudation of the skin is only used in self-defence. They are 
extremely useful in the destruction of insects, and they will be found to be valuable as well 
as amusing assistants in a greenhouse or conservatory. Sir Joseph Banks wrote—“I have 
from my childhood, in conformity with the precepts of a mother void of all imaginary 
fear, been in the constant habit of taking toads in my hand, holding them there some 
time, and applying them to my face and nose as it may happen. My motive for doing this 
very frequently is to inculcate the opinion I have held, since I was told by my mother, 
that the toad is actually a harmless animal; and to whose manner of life man is certainly 
under some obligation, as its food is chiefly those insects which devour his crops and annoy 
him in various ways.’ 
