THE FROGS. 173 



to the backs of their own species, so we know they 

 will do the same with fish. Walton mentions a strange 

 story of their destroying pike ; but that they will injure, 

 if not eventually kill, carp appears evident, from the 

 following relation : ' A very few years ago, on fishing a 

 pond belonging to Mr. Pitt, of Encomb, Dorsetshire, great 

 numbers of carp were found each with a frog mounted on 

 it ; the hind-legs clinging to the back and the fore-legs 

 fixed in the corner of each eye of the fish, which were thin 

 and greatly wasted, teased by carrying so disagreeable a 

 load.' These frogs we imagine to be males disappointed 

 of a mate." 



Taverner ("Experiments on Fish, &c.," printed in 1600) 

 says : " In the moneth of March, at what time todes doe 

 ingender, the tode will many times covet to fasten himselfe 

 uppon the heade of the carpe, and will thereby invenime 

 the carpe in such sort that the carpe will swell as great 

 as he may hold, so that his scales will stand as it were 

 on edge, and his eyes stand out of his head neare halfe an 

 inch, in very ugly sort, and in the end will for the most 

 part die thereof, and it is dangerous for any person to 

 eate of any such carpe so invenimed." 



Bell (" British Reptiles," p. 91), after quoting Walton's 

 anecdote, says : "I have often heard my father relate an 

 instance of a similar fact, though with somewhat more 

 adherence to the simple truth of the case. As he was 

 walking in the spring on the banks of a large piece of 

 water at Wimpole, the seat of Lord Hardwicke, he observed 

 a large pike swimming in a very sluggish manner near 

 the surface of the water, having two dark- coloured patches 

 on the side, which he thought must be occasioned by 

 disease. A few days afterwards he saw the same pike 

 floating dead upon the surface of the water, and having 

 drawn it to land by means of a stick, he found that the 

 dark-coloured masses which he had observed on the former 

 occasion were two living frogs, still attached to the fish, 

 and that so firmly that it required some force to push 

 them off. There can be no doubt that the diseased state 

 of the pike facilitated the approach and adhesion of the 



