30 HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN FAUNA. 



The Natterjack Toad (Bufo calamitd} has a very 

 local distribution in the British Islands. In Ireland 

 it is found only along the coast of Dingle Bay in 

 County Kerry, where it is known among the peasantry 

 as the Black Frog. There is no doubt about its 

 being indigenous there, and though it has not spread 

 beyond the very limited area of its habitat, the Irish 

 climate cannot be said to be unsuited to its existence. 

 Yet it seems to be extremely difficult to acclimatise 

 it elsewhere, for though no less than sixty specimens 

 were turned out in Phcenix Park, Dublin, about 

 forty years ago, none of them were ever seen 

 afterwards. They were placed in the vicinity of one 

 of the lakes, so as to give them ample scope for 

 breeding and developing the young, and in sur- 

 roundings which were considered eminently suitable 

 at the time. 



It has occasionally happened, too, that animals are 

 introduced by kindly-disposed persons with the view 

 of adding a species to their fauna, in complete 

 ignorance of their previous existence in the country 

 where they wished to naturalise them. Thus we are 

 told that in the year 1699 one of the Fellows of 

 Trinity College, Dublin, procured Frog's spawn from 

 England in order to add that amphibian to the Irish 

 fauna. It was placed in a ditch in the College Park, 

 whence the species is supposed to have gradually 

 spread all over the island. This story is quoted by 

 many writers as the true history of the Frog in 

 Ireland, and is given as an example of the rapidity 



