SOME NOTES ON THE —MALAYAN. FOLK-LORE 
OPUNA TURAL eHisrORY: 
By L. Wray, JUN. 
A strange superstition is attached to a small snail which frequents 
the- neighbourhood of the limestone hills in Perak. It belongs to the 
Cyclophoridz, and is probabiy an A/ycxus. Among the grass in the 
shadow of a grazing animal these creatures are to be discovered, and if 
one of them is crushed it will be found to be full of blood, which 
has been drawn in a mysterious way from the veins of the animal 
through its shadow. Where these noxious snails abound the cattle be- 
come emaciated and sometimes even die from the constant loss of blood. 
In the folk-lore of other countries many parallels to this occur, but they 
differ in either the birds, bats or vampires, who are supposed to prey on 
the life-blood of their fellows, going direct to the animals to suck the 
blood instead of doing so through the medium of their shadows. 
A horned toad, known as katak bertandok, but not the common one 
of that name (Vegalophrys nasuta, Gunther), has a very bad reputation 
with the Malays. It is said to live in the jungle on the hills, and when- 
ever it takes up its abode all the trees and plants around wither and die. 
So poisonous is it, that it is dangerous even to approach it, and to touch 
or be bitten by it is certain death. 
The bite of the common toad (Lufo melanostictus, Cantor) is also 
said to prove fatal. That toads have no teeth is an anatomical detail 
that does not seem to be thought worthy of being taken into account. 
The supposed venomous properties of this useful and harmless 
tribe have a world-wide range. In Shakspeare many allusions to it are 
made ; one of them, which mentions the habit of hibernation possessed by 
those species which inhabit the colder parts of the earth, says— 
“In the poison’d entrails throw, 
Toad, that under coldest stone 
Days and nights hast thirty-one, 
Swelter’d venom sleeping got, 
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.” 
Macbeth, Act. iv. 
In another, reference is made to the toad-stone, which seems to 
be represented in Malayan tradition by the pearl carried in the bodies of 
the hamadryad, the cobra and the bungarus, the three most deadly 
snakes of the Peninsula.* 
“Sweet are the uses of adversity 
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
Wears yet a precious jewel in its head.” 
* These stones are called batu gligar, and are highly valued. They are calcareous, and 
look like the rounded and waterworn operculum of some marine mollusc, but their true 
origin is uncertain, 
