66 REPTILES TOADS. 



whose crown glitters like burnished gold. It often 

 hangs like a titmouse, with its back downwards, 



LETTER XVII. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, June 18, 1768. 

 DEAR SIR, 



ON Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter 

 of June the 10th. It gives me great satisfaction to 

 find that you pursue these studies still with such 

 vigour, and are in such forwardness 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 cryp- 

 togamia in the sexual system of plants ; and the case 

 is the same with regard to some of the fishes, as the 

 eel, &c. 



The method in which toads procreate and bring 

 forth, seems to be very much in the dark. Some 

 authors say that they are viviparous ; 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 eo-io //ev worofcot, Zfa 

 e fworo/cot, as is known to be the case with the 

 viper.* 



* Toads are oviparous. Mr. Bell of London, a zealous 

 ophiologist, has lately confirmed the fact recorded by 

 Schneider, that toads devour the skin which they shed. In 

 one instance, he witnessed the whole process of the shedding 

 of the cuticle : it became divided longitudinally along the 



