TOAD-STONE.] NATURAL HISTORY. 313 



A GOOD way to get the stone called crapaudina out of 

 the toad : put a great, or overgrown toad (first bruised in 

 divers places) into an earthen pot, and put the same in an 

 ants' hillock, and cover the same with earth, which toad at 

 length the ants will eat, so that the bones of the toad and 

 stone will be left in the pot, which Mizaldus and many 

 others hath oftentimes proved. 



Lupton, "Notable Things," bk. vii. 18. 



You shall know whether the Toad-stone called crapaudina 

 be the right and perfect stone or not : hold the stone 

 before a toad, so that he may see it, and if it be a right 

 and true stone, the toad will leap toward it, and make as 

 though he would snatch it from you ; he envieth so much 

 that a man should have that stone. This was credibly told 

 Mizaldus for truth by one of the French King's Physicians, 

 which affirmed that he did see the trial thereof. 



Ibid., bk. vii. 79. 



THERE is a precious stone in the head of a toad, and 

 there be many that wear these stones in rings, being verily 

 persuaded, that they keep them from all manner of gripings, 

 and pains of the belly. But the art is in taking it out, 

 for it must be taken out of the head alive, before the toad 

 be dead, with a piece of cloth of the colour of red scarlet, 

 wherewithal they are much delighted, so that while they 

 stretch out themselves as it were in sport upon that cloth, 

 they cast out the stone of their head, but instantly they 

 sup it up again, unless it be taken from them through 

 some secret hole in the said cloth, whereby it falleth into 

 a cistern or vessel of water, into the which the toad dareth 

 not enter, by reason of the coldness of the water. Now 

 stones are engendered in living creatures two manner of 

 ways, either through heat, or extreme cold, as in the snail, 

 perch, crab, Indian tortoises and toads ; so that by ex- 

 tremity of cold this stone should be gotten. In the 

 iresence of poison it will change the colour. 



P: 



Topsell, "History of Serpents," p. 727. 



[Topsell is neither for nor against the existence of this 

 stone, but he cannot believe that it is generated by cold, be- 

 cause the stone is hard.] 



