NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 59 



3 The golden-crested wren suspends its deep purse-like nest beneath some 

 thick fir branch, and lays a number of tiny yellow-brown eggs, like green-peas 

 in size. All the winter through this wren and the long-tailed tit frequented the 

 hedgerows and coppices in Shropshire, and were frequent victims to a school- 

 boy's love of chevying. 



LETTER XVII. 



SELBORNE, June i8//&, 1768. 



DEAR SIR, On Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter 

 of June loth. It gives me great satisfaction to find that you 

 pursue these studies still with such vigour, and are in such for- 

 wardness with regard to reptiles and fishes. 



The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with, so well 

 as I could wish, with regard to their natural history. There is a 

 degree of dubiousness and obscurity attending the propagation of 

 this class of animals, something analogous to that of the crypto- 

 gamia in the sexual system of plants : and the case is the same 

 with regard to some of the fishes ; as the eel, etc. 1 



The method in which toads procreate and bring forth seems to 

 be very much in the dark. Some authors say that they are vivi- 

 parous : and yet Ray classes them among his oviparous animals \ 

 and is silent with regard to the manner of their bringing forth. 

 Perhaps they may be low ^kv woroVot, cw Se CDOTO'/COI, as is known 

 to be the case with the viper. 



The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it ; for 

 .Swammerdam proves that the male has no penis intrans) is notorious 

 to everybody: because we see them sticking upon each other's backs 

 for a month together in the spring : and yet I never saw, or read of 

 toads being observed in the same situation. It is strange that the 

 matter with regard to the venom of toads has not been yet settled. 

 That they are not noxious to some animals is plain : for ducks, 

 buzzards, owls, stone-curlews, and snakes, eat them, to my know- 

 ledge, with impunity. And I well remember the time, but was 

 not eyewitness to the fact (though numbers of persons were) when 





