176 OVIPAROUS QUADRUPEDS. 



twelvemonth, it never enjoyed itfelf, and had a difficulty of taking its 

 food* mining the mark. for want of its eye." 



The Toad is torpid in winter ,* often many in the fame hole; and re- 

 treats to the hollow root of a tree, the cleft of a rock, or the bottom of a 

 pond, where it is in a (late of feeming infenfibility. As it is very long- 

 lived, it is very difficult to be killed ; its fkin is tougli, and cannot be 

 eafily pierced; and, though covered with wounds, the animal continues 

 to fhew figns of life. But what fhall we fay to its living lodged in the 

 bofom of (lone, or cafcd within the body of an oak ? Bacon aflerts that 

 Toads have been fo found : Dr. Plott afferts the fame. There is to 

 this day a marble chimney-piece at Chatfworth, with the print of the 

 toad upon it, and a tradition of the manner in which it was found. In 

 the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences there is an account of a toad 

 found alive and healthy in the heart of a very thick elm. In the year 

 1 73 1 there was another found near Nantz, in the heart of an old oak 

 ■without the fmalleft ilTue to its cell, and the difcoverer was of opinion, 

 from the fize of the tree, that the animal could not have been confined 

 there lefs than eighty or a hundred years. To thefe we can only oppofe 

 the flrangenefs of the fad:s ; the neceffity this anim^al appears under of 

 receiving air; and its dying like all others in the air-pump, when de- 

 prived of this all-fuftaining fluid. Certain it is that, if kept in a damp 

 place, the toad will live for eighteen months without any food whatfo- 

 cver J and though kept in boxes fealcd carefully with wax. It is proba- 

 ble that thofe in trees were not abfolutely without air; fince fome might 

 be tranfmitted by the pores or air vtiTels of the wood. That fome, thus 

 found, were rather preferved from putrefadtion,* than really living, feems 

 alfo fuppofable ; and if fo, there being no evaporation through flonc, 

 they might have retained their moiilure many centuries, and-- yet have 

 furnifhed fomewhat thought to be blood. 



Of this animal there are feveral varieties; fuch as the Water and the 

 Land Toad, which probably differ only in the ground colour of their 

 ikin. In the firft, it is miore inclining to afli-colour, with brown fpots ; 

 in the other, the colour is brown, approaching to black. The water toad 

 is not fo large as the other ; but both equally breed in that element. 

 The fize of the toad with us is generally from two to four inches long ; 

 but, in the fenny countries of Europe, much larger. But this is nothing 

 to their fize in fome of the tropical climates, where travellers often, at 

 the firft time, miftake a toad for a tortoife. Their ufual fize is from fix 

 to feven inches, and fome larger. In Carthagena and Porto- bcllo their 



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