124 POISON OF TOAD QUESTIONED, 



glandules capable of secreting an acrid, offen- 

 sive matter. 



AMICUS. Is it not Shakspeare, through his 

 witches in the dark cave by the side of their 

 bubbling cauldron, that speaks of the "sweltered 

 venom " of the toad ? Yet I have been taught 

 to believe and Cuvier is my authority, 

 that the toad is harmless, and the notion of 

 its poison a vulgar error. 



PISCATOR. According to two countrymen of the 

 great naturalist, who have recently given their 

 attention to the subject, not only is the toad 

 poisonous, but its poison is of a very deadly 

 kind; such, they say, is the conclusion they 

 have been led to by their experiments. 



AMICUS. What am I to believe? What is 

 your belief in the matter ? 



PISCATOR. That which I before mentioned, 

 viz., that the secretion yielded by the cu- 

 taneous glandules is an acrid, offensive matter, 

 not such a poison as to be entitled to be called 

 deadly. Such trials as I have made, and I 

 have made many, only admit of this inference. 

 But, apart from experiment, it is not easy, nor 

 do I think it wise, to put aside the doctrine of 

 final causes ; viewed in this relation, it seems 



