112 NATURE IN A CITY YARD 



utter a low "gur-r-r-r," with rippling throat. 

 I found him one morning on the water- 

 hyacinth. He had to climb over a rockery 

 set with cactus to get there ; and in run- 

 ning from me he jumped square into one of 

 the most spiny and vicious of these plants, 

 apparently without injury to himself or 

 the plant. 



There used to be a belief that toads were 

 poisonous. A dog will not hold one in his 

 mouth very long, they say. I never hold 

 them long that way, either. But I often 

 hold them in my hand, to their distress 

 probably, and find that they do not " give 

 warts." And that belief is like many an- 

 other. We ought to get up a society of 

 exploders men who will blow up fallacies 

 of custom, government, laws, and quota- 

 tion. How many venerable sayings would 

 be killed off by such a society ! You hear, 

 for instance, that "you can't make bricks 

 without straw." Unless you have been in 

 the East, or in Mexico, which is much the 

 same, you never saw a brick with straw in 

 it. Haverstraw bricks have never a straw. 

 They speak of elusive hopes as will-o'-the- 



