340 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



by them, as also by frogs in almost innumerable 

 numbers in spring, when their croaking can be 

 heard fifty yards away when it is still. 



Labourers say that sometimes in grubbing out the 

 butt of an old tree previously sawn down they 

 have found a toad in a cavity of the solid wood, and 

 look upon it as a great wonder. But such old trees 

 are often hollow at the bottom, and the hollows com- 

 municate with the ditch, so that the toad probably 

 had no difficulty of access. The belief in the venom 

 of the toad is still current, and some will tell you that 

 they have had sore places on their hands from having 

 accidentally touched one. 



They say, too, that an irritated snake, if it can- 

 not escape, will strike at the hand and bite, though 

 harmless. Snakes will, indeed, twist round a threat- 

 ening stick ; and, as it is evidently a motion induced 

 by anger, the question arises whether they have some 

 power of constriction. If so, it is slight. In summer 

 a few snakes may always be found by the stream that 

 runs through the fields near Wick Farm. 



This brook, like many others, in its downward 

 course is checked at irregular intervals by hatches, 

 built for the purpose of forcing water out into the 

 meadows, or up to ponds at some distance from the 

 stream at which the cattle in the sheds drink. Some- 

 times the water is thus led up to a farmstead ; some- 

 times the farmstead is situate on the very banks of 

 the brook, and the hatch is within a few yards. Be- 

 sides the movable hatches, the stream in many places 



