NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 395 



skin of the toad, especially abcvit the head and shoulders, 

 was proved by Dr. Davy to be a very acrid secretion, re- 

 sembling the extract of aconite when applied to the 

 tongue, and even acting upon the hands. Pressure 

 causes this fluid to be emitted, occasionally to some dis- 

 tance, and the defence stands the toad often in good 

 stead, especially when attacked by dogs, which have been 

 frequently seen to drop the troublesome customer from 

 their mouths, with a shake of the head even more eloquent 

 than Lord Burleigh's. And yet this secretion, more acrid 

 than the poison of serpents, produces no effect when in 

 troduced into the circulation. A chicken was inoculated 

 with it, and no alteration was perceptible in its actions 

 or health. 



Those who are interested in the marvellous stories of 

 ' antediluvian toads' will be well rewarded by consulting 

 Dr. Bucklaud's paper on the subject, in the fifth volume 

 of the Zoological Journal. He made several experi- 

 ments by shutting them up in cells, fashioned in a large 

 block of oolitic limestone, and in another of compact sili- 

 ceous sandstone, and buried the blocks with the im- 

 prisoned toads three feet deep in his garden. He placed 

 others each in a small basin of plaster of Paris, four 

 inches deep and five inches in diameter, and well luted 

 them over with a covering of the same material. These 

 were buried with those immured in the blocks of stone. 

 He enclosed some in three holes cut for the purpose in 

 the trunk of an apple-tree. Two were placed in one hole ; 

 the others were imprisoned singly, and the holes were 

 tightly plugged up. The result of these experiments 

 was, a conclusion that toads cannot live a year excluded 

 totally from atmospheric air, and that they cannot sur- 

 vive two years, if entirely prevented from obtaining 

 food. 



But let us, before we depart, look into the reptile- 

 house on a warm summer night. We enter with a dark 



