50 The Natural History 



for her situation, told her that if she would make such an 

 application of living toads as is mentioned she would be 

 well/' Now is it likely that this unknown gentleman 

 should express so much tenderness for this single sufferer, 

 and not feel any for the many thousands that daily 

 languish under this terrible disorder? Would he not 

 have made use of this invaluable nostrum for his own 

 emolument ; or, at least, by some means of publication 

 or other, have found a method of making it public for 

 the good of mankind? In short, this woman (as it 

 appears to me) having set up for a cancer-doctress, finds 

 it expedient to amuse the country with this dark and 

 mysterious relation. 



The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least 

 appearance of any gills ; for want of which it is con- 

 tinually rising to the surface of the water to take in 

 fresh air. I opened a big-bellied one indeed, and found 

 it full of spawn. Not that this circumstance at all 

 invalidates the assertion that they are larvae : for the 

 larvae of insects are full of eggs, which they exclude the 

 instant they enter their last state. The water-eft is 

 continually climbing over the brims of the vessel, within 

 which we keep it in water, and wandering away : and 

 people every summer see numbers crawling out of the 

 pools where they are hatched, up the dry banks. There 

 are varieties of them, differing in colour ; and some have 

 fins up their tail and back, and some have not. 



LETTER XIX 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selboine, Aug. 17, 1768. 

 Dear Sir, 



I have now, past dispute, made out three distinct 

 species of the willow-wrens {motaciilce trochili) which 

 constantly and invariably usq distinct notes. But, at the 

 same lime, I am obliged to confess that I know nothing 



