THE COMMON TOAD. 39 



liquor, the contents of a peculiar reservoir, that, in 

 case of alarm, appears to be emptied in order to 

 lighten the body, that the animal may the more rea- 

 dily escape*. It is its extremely forbidding aspect 

 only that has obtained for the Toad its present unjust 

 character of being a dangerously poisonous animal. 

 He is persecuted and murdered wherever he ap- 

 pears, on the supposition merely that because he 

 is ugly he must in consequence be venomous. Its 

 eyes are, however, proverbially beautiful, having a 

 brilliant reddish gold-coloured iris surrounding the 

 dark pupil, and forming a striking contrast with 

 the remainder of its body}-. Hence Shakespere, in 

 Romeo and Juliet, remarks : 



Some say the Lark and loathed Toad change eyes. 



Its reputation as a poisonous animal obtained 

 for it, among the superstitious, many preternatural 

 powers ; and the reputed dealers in magic art are 

 reported to have made much use of it in their com- 

 pounds. This circumstance caused it to be inserted 

 among the ingredients adopted by the witches in 

 Macbeth, to raise the spirits of the dead : 



Toad that under the cold stone 

 Days and nights has thirty-one 

 Suelter'd venom, sleeping got, 

 Boil thou first i' th' charmed pot. 



It is no difficult task, singular as it may appear 

 to those who have never attended to this animal, 



* Townson's Tracts. + Shaw's Gen. Zool. iii. 138. 



P4 



