172 ANIMAL LIFE OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



Several are found commonly together, and, .like others of the 

 genus, they appear in the evenings." 



In Scotland it is much more rare than in England ; but in 

 certain parts of Ireland, as around Castlemaine and Valentia 

 Harbours in Co. Kerry, it is plentiful and known by the name 

 of Natchet, which is probably an Irish corruption of Natterjack. 

 In his bright and entertaining " Seventy Years of Irish Life," 

 Mr. W. R. Le Fanu gives a native explanation of their continued 

 presence in Kerry, in spite of St. Patrick's activities : " Notwith- 

 standing all this, there still exists a species of Toad (the Natchet, 

 I think) in the barony of Iveragh, in the west of Kerry. I was 

 fishing in the Carah river the first time I saw them. I said to 

 two countrymen, who were standing by, ' How was it that these 

 Toads escaped Saint Patrick? ' * Well, now, yer honour,' said 

 one of them, ' it's what I'm tould that when Saint Patrick was 

 down in these parts he went up the Reeks, and when he seen 

 what a wild and dissolute place Iveragh was, he wouldn't go any 

 further ; and that's the rason them things does be here still. 7 

 ' Well now, yer honour,' said the other fellow, * I wouldn't alto- 

 gether give into that, for av coorse the saint was, many's the 

 time, in worse places than Iveragh. It's what I hear, yer honour, 

 that it was a lady that sent them from England in a letter fifty or 

 sixty years ago." 



The Natterjack is found on the Continent from Denmark and 

 Sweden to Gibraltar. 



As we have naturalised representatives of the Continental 

 Frogs here, so we have an isolated colony of the European 

 Midwife Toad (Alytes obstetricans)^ established many years ago 

 in what was then a nurseryman's garden at Bedford. The 

 circumstances attending its introduction are not known, but the 

 colony still exists. The female lays from twenty to fifty bright 

 yellow eggs connected in a long string, which the male entangles 

 around his thighs and retires with them to his hole until the 

 embryos have reached the tadpole stage a period of about six 



