48 WHITE 



account, I thought I discerned circumstances which did not a 

 little invalidate the woman's story of the manner in which she 

 came by her skill. She says of herself " that, laboring under 

 a virulent cancer, she went to some church where there was 

 a vast crowd; on going into a pew, she was accosted by a 

 strange clergyman, who, after expressing compassion for her 

 situation, told her that if she would make such an application 

 of living toads as is mentioned she would be well." Now is 

 it likely that this unknown gentleman should express so much 

 tenderness for this single sufferer, and not feel any for the 

 many thousands that daily languish under this terrible dis- 

 order ? Would he not have made use of this invaluable nos- 

 trum for his own emolument ; or at least, by some means of 

 publication or other, have found a method of making it public 

 for the good of mankind ? In short, this woman (as it appears 

 to me) having set up for a cancer-doctress, finds it expedient 

 to amuse the country with this dark and mysterious relation. 

 The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least appear- 

 ance of any gills ; for want of which it is continually rising to 

 the surface of the water to take in fresh air. I opened a big- 

 bellied one indeed, and found it full of spawn. Not that this 

 circumstance at all invalidates the assertion that they are larva ; 

 for the larva of insects are full of eggs, which they exclude the 

 instant they enter their last state. The water-eft is continually 

 climbing over the brims of the vessel, within which we keep it 

 in water, and wandering away ; and people every summer see 

 numbers crawling out of the pools where they are hatched, up 

 the dry banks. There are varieties of them, differing in color ; 

 and some have fins up their tail and back, and some have not. 



NOTE 



1 The Gasterosteus pungitius is the ten-spined stickleback. The other 

 is the common one with three spines. G. C. D. 



