456 



CLASS REPTILIA. 



sometimes singularly enlarge the belly of the animal. Their 

 colour is blackish while in the ovary, as Camper has observed, 

 except the smallest, which are yellow and white. 



The toads feed on small mollusca, worms, and insects, and 

 never touch dead or motionless animals. When Linnaeus 

 tell us, " delectantur cotula, actcea, stacMde^'' we must not 

 suppose that the learned Swede meant that they lived on 

 vegetables, but merely that they were pleased with the odour 

 of these fetid plants. 



It is during night that the toads issue forth from their 

 sombre retreats. They also abandon them after the hot rains 

 of summer, and at such times they are often seen almost to 

 cover the surface of the earth in places where they were not 

 observed before. This has given rise to the same absurd 

 opinion concerning them which we have already noticed to 

 prevail concerning the frogs, namely, that they fell in rain 

 from tlie sky. 



Toads live a long time without eating. They have been 

 known to remain shut up for years in walls, hollow trees, or 

 in the earth, without being able to get out, and without 

 losing life. In 1777? Herissant undertook some experiments 

 to ascertain the truth of facts of this kind, which might ap- 

 pear fabulous. He shut up three toads in sealed boxes in 

 plaster, and they were deposited in the Academy of Sciences. 

 At the end of eighteen months one of these toads was dead, 

 but the other two were still living. Nobody could doubt 

 the authenticity of this fact, yet the experiments were 

 severely criticized, as well as the observations which they 

 seemed to confirm. It was contended that the air must have 

 come to these animals through some imperceptible hole which 

 escaped the notice of the observer. Some probability, how- 

 ever, was given to this circumstance by some researches of 

 Dr. Edwards, published in 1817- He has observed that 

 toads, shut up totally in plaster, and absolutely deprived of 



