THE TOAD. 47 



Emits a frothy fluid not venomous. 



covered with them ; so much so that many of 

 the inhabitants believe that every drop of rain is 

 converted into a toad. If it happen to rain 

 during the night, all the toads quit their hiding 

 places, and then crawl about in such numbers, as 

 almost literally to touch each other, and hide the 

 surface of the earth; on such occasions it is im- 

 possible to stir out of doors without trampling 

 them underfoot at every step. 



When irritated, this creature emits from vari- 

 ous parts of its skin a kind of frothy fluid that, 

 in our climate, produces no further unpleasant 

 symptoms than slight inflammation, from its 

 weakly acrimonious nature. Dogs, on seizing 

 these animals, appear to be affected with a slight 

 swelling in their mouth, accompanied by an in- 

 creased evacuation of saliva. The limpid fluid 

 which the toad suddenly ejects from his body 

 when disturbed, has been ascertained to be per- 

 fectly free from any noxious -qualities whatever; 

 it is merely a watery liquor, the contents of a 

 peculiar reservoir, that, in case of alarm, appears 

 to be emptied in order to lighten the body, that 

 the animal may the more readily escape. It is 

 its extremely forbidding aspect only that has ob- 

 tained for this creature its present unjust charac- 

 ter of being a dangerously poisonous animal. It 

 is persecuted and murdered wherever it appears, 

 on the supposition merely that because it i* 

 ugly it must in consequence be venomous; and 

 its reputation as a poisonous animal obtained for 



