178 A DOMESTIC PET. 



up, as if expecting to be taken into the house and fed. It was 

 frequently gratified in this way, being carried into the parlour, 

 placed upon the table, and there treated to a supper, in the 

 presence of the assembled household. The favourite food of the 

 pet was the common flesh-maggot, a supply of which was 

 regularly kept for it in bran. In taking its food, it would follow 

 the maggots on the table, and, when within a proper distance, 

 would fix its eyes and remain motionless for a while, apparently 

 preparing for the stroke ; and then, quicker than the eye could 

 follow, it darted out its tongue, and, catching the maggot on the 

 point, the tongue was as rapidly withdrawn, and the maggot 

 swallowed. This sort of exhibition excited, as a matter of 

 course, great curiosity in the neighbourhood, and often brought 

 the Toad a number of visitors. For the long period of thirty-six 

 years the pet continued to occupy his hole under the door-steps 

 of his benefactor and friend ; but one fatal day another pet, in 

 the shape of a tame raven, espied the poor Toad at the mouth of 

 his retreat, and, pulling him out, wounded him so badly that, 

 no great while after, he died : and thus terminated a career, the 

 record of which has probably done more than the most eloquent 

 appeals to the humanity of mankind, to redeem the race from the 

 cruel persecution to which they are exposed. 



The frog stands at the head of his order, the original Batrachos 

 of the Greeks, the type and perfect model of the entire race to 

 which in later times his name has been applied. And as the 

 Frog stands thus at the top of the list, so his family is the most 

 numerous of any of the sections in the order. 



Let us take the common Frog (Sana temporaria) as the re- 

 presentative of his tribe ; and the first thing to be said of him is, 

 that he is lighter and more elegant in form than his cousin the 

 Toad, from which also he differs in having his upper jaw armed 

 with teeth. It is to the former of these features, by which the 

 Frog is distinguished from the Toad, that he no doubt owes in 

 part his exemption from those ill-natured and offensive epithets 

 which are continually launched at the head of that poor unfortu- 

 nate. But though neither " ugly " nor " venomous," the Frog 

 is no more of a favourite with the world at large than his puffy 

 congener. Never, however, was a more innocent, inoffensive, and 

 deserving creature cut off from the protection and favour that he 

 merits. And the misfortune is, that not man alone, but numbers 



