60 NOTES ON MALAYAN FOLK-LORE. 
Boccaccio makes one of his stories turn on the poisonous properties 
of a toad, the two principal characters, Pasquino and Simona, being 
killed by putting into their mouths the leaves of a sage plant which grew 
over the hole of a large toad. ‘King John of England is supposed 
to have been poisoned by a drink in which matter from a living toad had 
been infused.’’—edical Furisprudence, by Beck. 
There is some foundation of fact for the popular belief, as toads 
secrete an acrid fluid from the skin, which appears to defend them from 
the attacks of carnivorous animals.* 
A species of fish-like tadpole, found at certain seasons of the year 
in the streams and pools, is supposed to divide when it reaches maturity, 
the front portion forming a frog and the after past or tail becoming the 
fish known as zkan fz, one of the cat-fishes or silurida. In consequence 
of this strange idea many Malays will not eat the fish, deeming it but 
little better than the animal from which it is supposed to have been cast. 
The zkan kli is armed with two sharp barbed spines attached to 
the fore part of the pectoral fins, and can and does inflict very nasty 
wounds with them, when incautiously handled. The spines are reputed 
to be poisonous, but it is believed that if the brain of the offending fish 
is applied to the wound it will act as a complete antidote to the poisonous 
principle, and the wound will heal without trouble. The English cure for 
hydrophobia—that is, ‘‘the hair of the dog that bit you,” will occur to 
all as a modification of the same idea. 
When the eggs of a crocodile are hatching out, the mother 
watches; the little ones that take to their native element she does not 
molest, but she eats up all those which run away from the water, but 
should any escape her and get away on to the land they will change into 
tigers. Some of these reptiles are said to have tongues, and when 
possessed of that organ they are very much more vicious and dangerous 
than the ordinarily <onmed ones. When a crocodile enters a river, it 
swallows a pebble, so that on opening the stomach of one it is only 
necessary to count the stones contained in it to tell how many rivers it 
has been into during its life. The Malays call these stones s7zra-kira 
dia, on its account. The Indians on the banks of the Oronoko, on the 
other hand, assert that the alligator swallows stones to add weight to its 
body to aid it in diving and dragging its prey under water. Crocodiles 
inhabiting a river are said to resent the intrusion of strangers from other 
* “The toad secretes a venom of a tolerably powerful character; and instead of this 
secretion taking place, as in the case of snakes, entirely through the salivary glands, it is 
actually secreted by the skin, so that the word “sw eated” is most accurately descriptive. 
Dr, Leonard Guthrie mentions that the secretion also occurs in the toad through the parotid 
elands, and the venom is a thick milky fluid like the juice of dandelion stalks in taste and 
appearance. When inoculated subcutaneously it kills small birds in six minutes, and dogs 
and guinea-pigs in half an hour to an hour and a half; the symptoms in birds being loss of 
co-ordination, followed by death, in guinea-pigs, convulsions, and in the dog, depression, 
vomiting, and intoxication. Dr. Guthrie describes two very interesting observations of his 
own on the effect of toad’s venom. He kept a small toad in a cage with some common 
lizards, and one day a lizard, having bitten the toad, immediately afterwards rushed wildly 
round the cage, burrowing its head in the sand, became convulsed, and died in less than two 
minutes. His dog having seized a toad, was attacked by instantaneous and profuse saliva- 
tion, violent vomiting, and collapse. He also noticed that the venom has a most powerful 
local action on the skin, so that after carrying a toad in his hand he got numbness and 
tingling in it, with slight swelling and dryness of the skin, lasting for several hours.” 
