of Selborne 45 



LETTER XVII 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selborne, June i8, 1768. 



Dear Sir, 

 On Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter of 

 June the loth. 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 propagation of this class of 

 animals, sometimes analogous to that of the cryptoga7ma 

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

 as regards some of the fishes : as the eel, etc. 



The method in which toads procreate and bring forth 

 seems to me very much in the dark. Some authors say 

 that they are viviparous : and yet Ray classes them 

 among his oviparous animals ; and is silent with regard 

 to the manner of their bringing forth. Perhaps they 

 may be ^o-w \Lkv wotokol, €^<o Se ^(dotokolj as is known to 

 be the case with the viper. 



The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of 

 it ; for Swammerdam proves that the male has no pern's 

 intrans) is notorious to everybody : because we see them 

 sticking upon each other's backs for a month together in 

 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 yet 

 been 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 persons were) when a quack, at 

 this village, ate a toad to make the country people stare ; 

 afterwards he drank oil. 



