FROGS TOADS. 67 



The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance 

 of it for Swammerdam proves that the male has 

 no penis intrans,) is notorious to every body ; 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 situa- 

 tion.* 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 knowledge with impunity. And I 

 well remember the time, but was not an eye-wit- 

 ness to the fact, (though numbers of persons were,) 

 when a quack at this village, ate a toad to make 

 the country people stare ; afterwards he drank 

 oil. 



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 



back and the abdomen ; by the action of the hinder leg on one 

 side, the skin was detached as far as the fore leg ; the same ope- 

 ration was next effected on the other side. The loosened 

 exuvice were then drawn forward, by the combined action of the 

 mouth and of the anterior legs, and were immediately swallowed. 

 Zool. Jour. Mr. Bell adds, that in others of the bactrachian 

 reptiles, the ranee and salamandree, no swallowing of the exuvice 

 took place. W. J. 



* The copulation of frogs and toads is performed in the same 

 manner. The spermatic fluid is passed upon the ova at the time 

 they are expelled from the female. The ova of the frog are 

 laid in conglutinated masses ; those of the toad in long chain- 

 like strings. The ova of the latter are also much smaller. 

 W.J. 



