TOADTOBACCO. 



633 



Spaniards arrived here. At present, the population 

 does not exceed 3000. 



TOAD (i/o). The toads are hardly distin- 

 guishable from the frogs, except by their more 

 clumsy form and motions, and the warts with which 

 the skin is studded. The jaws, however, are 

 destitute of teeth, and their habits are more terres- 

 trial ; for they keep at a distance from the water 

 during the greater part of the year. They come 

 out of their holes chiefly during the night, and feed 

 . on snails, worms and insects. They are capable of 

 living a long time without food, and have been 

 known to remain whole years in walls, hollow trees, 

 in the earth, or even when artificially enclosed in 

 plaster.* In the spring, they resort to the water 

 for the purpose of depositing their eggs. The tad- 

 poles are born there, acquire gills, and in every 

 respect resemble those of frogs. The common 

 toad of Europe has been an object of disgust, and 

 even horror, in all ages ; and numerous fables have 

 been related concerning it. Notwithstanding the 

 popular prejudice, it has been ascertained that the 

 legs are sold extensively in the markets of Paris for 

 those of frogs. 



The progress of natural philosophy has destroyed 

 half the beauty of the celebrated simile of Shak- 

 speare : 



" Sweet are the uses of adversity ; 

 Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 

 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head." 



Though the toad is still reputed venomous, yet 

 no one imagines it to have a jewel in its head. 

 This was, however, believed in Shakspeare's days. 

 Mr Steevens, the commentator, tells us, that it was 

 the current opinion, that in the head of an old toad 

 was to be found a stone or pearl, to which great 

 virtues were ascribed. Thomas Lupton, in his 

 ' First Bookeof Notable Things,' 4to., bl. 1., bears 



* This, at least, is the common opinion ; but the celebrated 

 geologist, professor Buckland, in a paper published in the 

 Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for July, 1832, says, in refer- 

 ence to a number of experiments which he made on the vitality 

 of toads enclosed in wood and stone : " From the result, it 

 seems to follow that toads cannot live a year excluded totally 

 from atmospheric air, and that they cannot survive two years 

 entirely excluded from food : and there is a want of sufficiently 

 minute and accurate observation in those so frequently re- 

 corded cases, where toads are said to be found alive within 

 biocks of stone and wood, in cavities that had no communica- 

 tion whatever with the external air. The first effort of the 

 young toad, as soon as it has left its tadpole state and emerged 

 from the water, is to seek shelter in holes and crevices of rocks 

 and trees. An individual which, when young, may have thus 

 entered a cavity by some very narrow aperture, would find 

 abundance of food by catching insects, which, like itself, seek 

 shelter within such cavities, and may soon have increased BO 

 much in bulk as to render it impossible to go out again through 

 the; narrow aperture at which it entered. A small hole of this 

 kind is very likely to be overlooked by common workmen, who 

 are the only people whose operations on stone and wood disclose 

 cavities in the interior of such substances. In the case of toads, 

 snakes and lizards, that occasionally issue from stones that are 

 broken in a quarry, or in sinking wells, and sometimes even 

 from strata or coal at the bottom of a coal mine, the evidence 

 is never perfect, to show that the reptiles were entirely en- 

 closed in a solid rock : no examination is ever made, until the 

 reptile is first discovered by the breaking of the mass in which 

 fa.-e it u -:is contained, and then it is too late to ascertain, without 

 carefully replacing every fragment (and in no case, that 1 have 

 seen reported, has this ever been done), whether or not there 

 was any hole or crevice by which the animal may have en- 

 tered the cavity from which it was extracted. Without pre- 

 vious examination, it is almost impossible to prove that there 

 was no such communication. In the case of rocks near the sur- 

 face of the earth, and in stone quarries, reptiles find ready admis- 

 sion to holes and fissures. We have a notorious example of 

 this kind in the lizard found in a chalk-pit, and brought alive 

 to the late doctor Clarke. In the case, also, of wells and coal- 

 pits, a reptile that had fallen down the well or shaft, and sur- 

 vived its fall, would seek its natural retreat in the first hole or 

 Tcvice it could find; and the miner, dislodging it from this 

 cavity, to which his previous attention had not been called, 

 might, in ignorance, conclude that the animal was coeval with 

 the stone from which he had extracted it." 



repeated testimony to the virtues of the " tode- 

 stone, called Crapaudina." In his ' Seventh Booke' 

 he instructs how to procure it; and afterwards 

 tells us, " You shall knowe whether the tode-stone 

 be the ryght and perfect stone or not. Holde the 

 stone before a toad, so that he may see it; and 

 if it be a ryght and true stone, the tode will leape 

 towarde it ; and make as though he would snatch 

 it. He envieth so much that man should have that 

 stone." It is hardly necessary to say any thing 

 more about this jewel, which is of course a mere 

 fantastic invention. 



Modern writers express themselves with some 

 doubt when speaking of the supposed venomous 

 nature of the toad. Beck says, in his Medical 

 Jurisprudence, " It is doubted at the present day, 

 though formerly it was believed. King John of 

 England is supposed to have been poisoned by a 

 drink in which matter from a living toad had been 

 infused. Pelletier has analyzed the venom of the 

 common toad, and states it to consist of an acid, a 

 very bitter and even caustic fat matter, and an ani- 

 mal matter having some analogy to gelatine. No 

 experiments, however, appear to have been made 

 with it." 



The tree-toads (hyla) belong to a different genus, 

 distinguished by having a mucous tubercle at the 

 extremity of each toe, by means of which, acting 

 as a sucker, they are enabled to cling to the branches 

 of trees, or to a perpendicular wall. 



TOAD-FLAX (antirrhinum linaria}. This plant, 

 in its general habit, is not very unlike the flax ; 

 but the flowers are bright yellow, showy, and of a 

 singular form, the corolla labiate, and provided 

 with a long spur. In the ordinary state of the 

 plant, the lips of the corolla are closed, and, if 

 forcibly opened, somewhat resemble the mouth of 

 some animal ; hence the name of snap-dragon has 

 been applied to plants of this genus. It grows in 

 sandy soil. A singular deviation from the ordinary 

 structure of the flower sometimes takes place in 

 this plant, and has led to some discoveries in veget- 

 able physiology : the corolla then assumes a regular 

 form, and is provided with five radiating spurs, in- 

 stead of one. 



TOALDO, GIUSEPPE, a celebrated Italian 

 mathematician, astronomer and meteorologist, born 

 in 1719, near Vicenza, studied theology at Padua, 

 but occupied himself chiefly with the mathematical 

 sciences, and, in 1762, was made professor of astro- 

 nomy and meteorology in the university of Padua. 

 Through his influence, an observatory was built 

 there, and lightning rods were erected in various 

 places. His mathematical text-books are distin- 

 guished for clearness and precision, and have been 

 introduced into many schools in Italy. His Astro- 

 nomical and Meteorological Journal was continued 

 from 1773 till his death, and his essay On the In- 

 fluence of the Weather upon the Growth of Plants, 

 which gained the prize proposed by the scientific 

 society of Montpellier (1774), is a standard work. 

 He published several other esteemed works, and 

 died in 1797. 



TOBACCO (Nicotiana tabacum). The intro- 

 duction of the use of tobacco forms a singular chap- 

 ter in the history of mankind ; and it may well ex- 

 cite astonishment, that the discovery in America of 

 a nauseous and poisonous weed, of an acrid taste 

 and disagreeable odour, in short, whose only pro- 

 perties are deleterious, should have had so great an 

 influence on the social condition of all nations ; that 

 it should have become an article of most extensive 



