1712 The Zoologist — June, 1869. 



and exceedingly dangerous qualities. The first experiment of these 

 gentlemen was performed on a little African tortoise, which was inocu- 

 lated with some of the toad poison in one of its hinder feet: paralysis 

 of the limb supervened, and still existed at the expiration of eight 

 months, thus demonstrating the possibility of local poisoning by this 

 agent. In order to determine whether the poisonous material was 

 deteriorated by keeping, the two gentlemen procured about twenty- 

 nine grains of the poison on the 25th of April, 1851, and having 

 laid it aside until the 16lh of March, 1852, they inoculated a gold- 

 finch with a small portion : the bird almost immediately died. Sub- 

 sequently the investigators succeeded in eliminating the poisonous 

 principle from the inert matters with which it is associated in the 

 skin pustules, and they found that when thus purified its effects were 

 much more intense. Linnets were subjected to its influence and died 

 in about six minutes after inoculation ; they were not convulsed, but 

 opened their beaks, and staggered as if inebriated ; they soon closed 

 their eyes, and finally fell down dead. Subsequently the experi- 

 mentalists inoculated a dog and a goat vvith the poison, and found 

 that it caused death in less than an hour. M. Vulpian performed 

 similar experiments with the poison of the toad and natterjack, on 

 dogs and guinea-pigs, and found that they died in periods varying 

 from an hour to an hour and a half. The poison is also eflfective on 

 frogs, killing them within an hour, and acting equally well by merely 

 applying it to the surface without puncturing the skin of the frog ; 

 but on toads themselves it has never been observed to have any efTect 

 whatever. One instance has been recorded of its fatal effect on a 

 human being, and this so interesting and so important that I shall 



quote it here. *' A young lad, ten years of age, named Louis P , 



whose parents are small tradespeople in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, 

 at Paris, was playing with some of his companions near Bercy, not far 

 from a building in the course of demolition. This bo}', who was of a 

 delicate constitution, had a slight abrasion on the skin of the right 

 hand : having seen a lizard run into a hole in an old wall, he put in 

 his hand, but instead of the lizard he drew out an enormous toad, 

 which he immediately threw on the ground. The skin of the load is 

 covered with large tubercles formed by an aggregation of small 

 pustules open at their summit : a milky liquid, of a yellowish-white 

 colour, very thick and of a fetid odour, escapes from these tubercles 

 when the animal is irritated. Whilst the lad had the animal in his 

 hand, this liquid, which is a virulent poison, was introduced through 



