68 NATURAL HISTORY 



she went to some church where there was a vast crowd ; on 

 going into a pew, she was accosted by a strange clergy- 

 man ; who, after expressing compassion for her situation, 

 told her that if she would make such an application of 

 living toads as is mentioned, she would be well/' Now is it 

 likely that this unknown gentleman should express so much 

 tenderness for this single sufferer, and not feel any for the 

 many thousands that daily languish under this terrible dis- 

 order ? Would he not have made use of this invaluable 

 nostrum for his own emolument ; or, at least, by some 

 means of publication or other, have found a method oi 

 making it public for the good of mankind ? In short, thie 

 woman (as it appears to me) having set up for a cancer- 

 doctress, finds it expedient to amuse the country with this 

 dark and mysterious relation. 



The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least appear- 

 ance of any gills ; for want of which it is continually rising 

 to the surface of the water to take in fresh air. 1 I opened a 

 big-bellied one, indeed, and found it full of spawn. Not 

 that this circumstance at all invalidates the assertion that 

 they are larvce : for the larvce of insects are full of eggs, 

 which they exclude the instant they enter their last state. 

 The water-eft is continually climbing over the brims of the 

 vessel, within which we keep it in water, and wandering 

 away : and people every summer see numbers crawling out 

 of the pools where they are hatched, up the dry banks. 

 There are varieties of them, differing in colour ; and some 

 have fins up their tail and back, and some have not. 2 



1 This applies only to the adult ; the young during the first months 

 of their existence have external gills. ED. 



2 The appearance of fin-like expansions on the back and tail of the 

 several species of Triton is confined to the male, and is only found in 

 that sex at the season of reproduction. ED. 



