50 NOTES TO THE 



The legend of toads curing people of cancer and other com- 

 plaints, says Mr. Davy, is all " Old Mother Hulbard." A 

 hundred years ago people used to make a living by quackery 

 of all sorts, and servants and farm-labourers used to put about 

 that they had been " cured by a toad." Even in our time there 

 is always some quack doctor about who says he can cure cancer. 

 I am afraid this is impossible. 



The cancer-doctor of White's time had evidently set up toads 

 as a remedy for this disease. At my father's rectory, near Islip, 

 a woman once gave her child a half-grown frog to suck, as she 

 had been "told it would cure the thrush round the child's mouth. 

 It is astonishing how these old relics of wonderful cures remain 

 in the recollection of country people. When with the 2nd Life 

 Guards at Aldershot I heard the story of a man having been 

 cured of some disease fits, I think by moss taken from the 

 skull of a highwayman, whose skeleton had been for many 

 years hanging in chains on a hill near the camp. 



Newts are often dug out at places one mile from water. 

 They are found ten inches down in the ground. They are found 

 by men when chrysalis-digging round roots of trees and along 

 sides of old walls ; this is where the best chrysalis hunting-ground 

 is situated. Mr. Davy can discover the haunts of caterpillars 

 where there is clear ground underneath the tree, by looking for 

 the excrement which has fallen from the trees; he then shakes 

 off the caterpillars. Some caterpillars are fetched down by the 

 first sudden jerk ; some, on the contrary, will hold the tighter 

 after the first jerk ; some " web up " and come into fly the same 

 year ; some burrow in the ground till the next spring. 



FROG CULTUKE, p. 54.- An American pisciculturist proposes 

 that some enterprising persons should turn their attention to frog- 

 culture ; and he gives careful directions for procuring and treat- 

 ing the spawn of frogs. The spawn will hatch in about fifteen 

 days, and if the tadpoles and young frogs are placed in a suit- 

 able position, they may be easily reared, and a large profit made. 

 The mode of feeding the frogs is, to place pieces of meat, or 

 other substances, to attract the flies, upon which the frogs feed ; 

 they will also eat maggots of decayed meat, and even the meat 

 itself. It appears that the demand for frogs in America is 

 increasing, and in that case a frog-farm might be made a good 

 investment. 



The Americans have it that when the bull-frogs croak the 

 gentlemen frogs sit on a log and say " More rum ; " the Lady frogs 

 croak ' Cider too.' If the reader will pronounce these words very 



