THE COMMON FKOG. 93 



but exercise more care in the preservation and 

 increase of toads and frogs, and establish on 

 their own domains a kind of " local game law," 

 instead of winking at the persecution, if not 

 really encouraging the extirpation, of their best 

 friends. It is strange that Nature should so well 

 provide for the "balance of power," and that 

 man should so pertinaciously endeavour to over- 

 turn her work, by the wholesale destruction of 

 insectivorous birds, or the persecution of harm- 

 less and beneficent reptiles. Yet in the primeval 

 forests, where sparrow clubs are unknown, and 

 insectivorous animals dwell unmolested, no evi- 

 dence can be traced of any great mistake which 

 Nature has made in the preponderance of any 

 given forms, nor can we trace any manifest 

 " bungle " which requires the wisdom of " the 

 lord of the creation " to put right. 



Of all reptiles submitted to incarceration none 

 behave better in captivity than this, as the fol- 

 lowing testimony will prove : 



In a fern-case, about 3 feet by 1 foot in area, I kept two toads, 

 a small frog, and a number of newts. The frog did not 

 appear fond of the water ; the newts would not go in, and 

 if thrown in, immediately crawled out again. The toads, on 

 the contrary, appeared to enjoy an occasional bath, remaining 

 in the water, with the mouth and eyes above the surface, for 

 several hours together. They lived, the one for about a year, 

 the other for nearly two. The newts dropped off one by one, 

 the last surviving for, I think, upwards of eighteen months. 



