328 CURIOUS CREATURES. 



the small guttes. But the Art, (as they term it) is in 

 taking of it out, for they say it must be taken out of the 

 head alive, before the Toade be dead, with a peece of 

 cloth of the colour of redde Skarlet, wherewithall they 

 are much delighted, so that while they stretch out them- 

 selves as it were in sport upon that cloth, they cast 

 out the stone of their head, but instantly they sup it 

 up againe, unlesse it be taken from them through some 

 secrete hole in the said cloth, whereby it falleth into a 

 cesterne or vessell of water, into the which the Toade 

 dare not enter, by reason of the coldnes of the water. . . . 

 " This stone is that which in auncient time was called 

 Batrachites, and they attribute unto it a vertue besides 

 the former, namely, for the breaking of the stone in 

 the bladder, and against the Falling sicknes. And they 

 further write that it is a discoverer of present poyson, 

 for in the presence of poyson it will change the colour. 

 And this is the substaunce of that which is written about 

 this stone. Now for my part I dare not conclude either 

 with it, or against it, for many are directlie for this stone 

 ingendered in the braine or head of the Toade : on the 

 other side, some confesse such a stone by name and 

 nature, but they make doubt of the generation of it, 

 as others have delivered ; and therefore, they beeing in 

 sundry opinions, the hearing whereof might confound 

 the Reader, I will referre him for his satisfaction unto a 

 Toade, which hee may easily every day kill : For although 

 when the Toade is dead, the vertue thereof be lost, which 

 consisted in the eye, or blew spot in the middle, yet the 

 substance remaineth, and, if the stone be found there in 

 substance, then is the question at an end ; but, if it be 

 not, then must the generation of it be sought for in some 

 other place." 



