CURIOUS CREATURES. 327 



" Sweet are the uses of adversity ; 

 Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 

 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head." 



(As You Like It, Act ii. sc. i.) 



Pliny says of these animals : " Authors quite vie with 

 one another in relating marvellous stories about them ; 

 such, for instance, as that if they are brought into the 

 midst of a concourse of people, silence will instantly 

 prevail ; as also that, by throwing into boiling water, 

 a small bone that is found in their right side, the vessel 

 will immediately cool, and the water refuse to boil again 

 until it has been removed. This bone, they say, may 

 be found by exposing a dead toad to ants, and letting 

 them eat away the flesh ; after which the bones must be 

 put into the vessel one by one. 



" On the other hand, again, in the left side of this 

 reptile there is another bone, they say, which, when 

 thrown into water, has all the appearance of making 

 it boil, and the name given to which is ' apocynon ' 

 (averting dogs). This bone it is said has the property 

 of assuaging the fury of dogs, and, if put in the drink, 

 of conciliating love, and ending discord and strife. 

 Worn, too, as an amulet, it acts as an aphrodisiac, we 

 are told." 



Topsell writes so diffusely on the virtues of these 

 " toad stones " that I can only afford space for a portion 

 of his remarks : " There be many late Writers, which 

 doe affirme that there is a precious stone in the head of 

 a Toade, whose opinions (because they attribute much 

 to the vertue of this stone) is good to examine in this 

 place. . . . There be many that weare these stones in 

 Ringes, beeing verily perswaded that they keepe them 

 from all manner of grypings and paines of the belly, and 



