OF SELBORNE 39 



This morning I saw the golden-crowned wren, whose crown 

 glitters like burnished gold. It often hangs like a titmouse, 

 with it's back downwards. 



Yours, &c., &c. 



LETTER XVII. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, June 18, 1768. 

 DEAR SIR, 



ON Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter of June the 10th. 

 It gives me great satisfaction to find that you pursue these studies 

 still with such vigour, and are in such forwardness with regard to 

 reptiles and fishes. 



The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with, so 

 well as I could wish, with regard to their natural history. There 

 is a degree of dubiousness and obscurity attending the propaga- 

 tion of this class of animals, something analogous to that of the 

 cryptogamia in the sexual system of plants : and the case is the 

 same with regard to some of the fishes ; as the eel, &c. 



The method in which toads procreate and bring forth seems 

 to be very much in the dark. Some authors say that they are 

 viviparous : and yet Ray classes them among his oviparous ani- 

 mals ; and is silent with regard to the manner of their bringing 

 forth. Perhaps they may be etrw /xev WOTOKOI, eo> Sc O>OTOKOI, as is 

 known to be the case with the viper. 1 



The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it ; for 

 Smammerdam proves that the male has no penis intrans} is notorious 

 to every body : because we see them sticking upon each others' 

 backs for a month together in the spring : and yet I never saw, 

 or read, of toads being observed in the same situation. It is 

 strange that the matter with regard to the venom of toads has 

 not been yet settled. That they are not noxious to some animals 

 is plain : for ducks, buzzards, owls, stone curlews, and snakes, eat 

 them, to my knowledge, with impunity. And I well remember 

 the time, but was not eye-witness to the fact (though numbers of 



1 [The reproductive process in the toad is very similar to that of the frog, but 

 the eggs, instead of being densely clustered, form a rope, often many yards long.] 



