128 THE TOAD AND THE FROG. 



and constitute a phenomenon which philosophy will perhaps be 

 for ever unable to elucidate. 



Toads, as well as frogs, admit of a variety of species; and in 

 the tropical climates, they grow to an enormous size. If we 

 should hazard a conjecture of their utility, it is very probable 

 that they contribute to clear both the land and the water of many 

 noxious reptiles of a diminutive size, which might prove exceed- 

 ingly hurtful to man. The toad, however, is one of the most 

 inoffensive of all animals. We have even heard that it hag 

 sometimes been successfully applied for the cure of the cancer, 

 the most dreadful, and one of the most fatal, of human evils. 



Mr. Pennant has related, on the authority of a correspondent, 

 some interesting particulars respecting a toad which was per- 

 fectly domesticated, and continued in the same spot for upwards 

 of thirty-six years. It frequented the steps before the hall-door 

 of a gentleman's house in Devonshire ; and from receiving a 

 regular supply of food, it became so tame as always to crawl 

 out of its hole in an evening, when a candle was brought, and 

 look up, as if expecting to be carried into the house. A reptile 

 so generally detested being taken into favour, excited the curi- 

 osity of every visitant, and even ladies so far conquered their 

 natural horror and disgust, as to request to see it fed. It 

 seemed particularly fond of flesh maggots, which were kept for 

 it in bran. When these were laid upon a table, it would follow 

 them, and, at a certain distance, would fix its eyes and remain 

 motionless for a little while, as if preparing for the stroke, which 

 was always instantaneous. It threw out its tongue to a great 

 distance, when the insect stuck by the glutinous matter to its 

 lip, and was swallowed with inconceivable quickness. After 

 living under the protection of its benefactor upwards of thirty-six 

 years, it was one day attacked by a tame raven, which wounded 

 it so severely, that it died shortly afterward. 



The erroneous opinion of toads containing and ejecting poison, 

 has caused many cruelties to be exercised upon this harmless, 

 and undoubtedly useful tribe. Toads have been inhumanly 

 treated, merely because they are ugly; and frogs have been 

 abused, because they are like them. But, we are to observe, 

 that our ideas of beauty and deformity, of which some arise from 

 natural antipathies implanted in us for wise and good purposes, 

 and others from custom and caprice, are of a relative nature, 

 and peculiar to ourselves. None of these relative distinctions 

 of great and small, beautiful or ugly, exist in the all-comprising 

 view of the Creator of the universe : in his eyes, the toad is as 

 pleasing an object as the canary-bird or the bullfinch. 



