OCTOBER 227 



want of knowledge as to the exact position of a toad's 

 mouth, and he undertakes to open the mouth of any 

 toad at any time of the year ; not with an oyster knife 

 or any other lethal weapon, but simply by inserting his 

 finger nail. 



The belief that the lips of a toad grow together in winter 

 probably will die as hard, if ever it dies, as the fable of 

 toads, hermetically immured in solid rock since the 

 carboniferous age, crawling away with all their faculties, 

 physical and mental, in a state of perfect efficiency so 

 soon as they are released by the quarryman's hammer. 

 One who realises what is involved in such a resurrec- 

 tion has to put restraint upon himself when, as happened 

 to myself not very long ago, an educated person claim- 

 ing to have acquaintance with natural history, solemnly 

 assures him that he has actually seen a block of sand- 

 stone split, and that within the block was a full-grown 

 living toad. On the occasion referred to, I kept silence. 

 Two or three other men were present ; the narrator had 

 not the least intention to deceive or exaggerate ; it was 

 not consistent with the laws of hospitality to declare that 

 to be impossible which a fellow-guest stated he had seen 

 with his own eyes ; and so the innocent falsehood was 

 propagated. Innocent as much in effect as in intent ; 

 because nobody with any acquaintance with biology 

 and physiology could possibly be misled by it, and to 

 those able to digest it no greater harm can come than 

 befell our forefathers from the belief that wild geese 

 were hatched from barnacles. That belief died pretty 

 hard; but dead it is, whereas the toad fable seems 

 destined to immortality. 



