460 



CLASS REPTILIA. 



Toads die very quickly, when they are powdered with salt 

 or tobacco. It is also said that gardeners drive them from 

 their gardens, by burning old leather there. 



There are few persons who would knowingly eat the flesh 

 of toads. Nevertheless, even at Paris, the thighs of these 

 animals are constantly sold for the thighs of frogs. In Africa 

 and America, they are habitually eaten by the negroes. 



The old physicians employed this disgusting being in a 

 variety of pharmaceutical preparations. Dried and powdered, 

 the flesh was considered diuretic and diaphoretic. It was 

 prescribed living, as a topical application in cases of cepha- 

 lagia and epigastralgia. Macerated in oil, it was considered 

 detersive and anodyne. Ettmuller, Joel, Vallesnieri, and 

 many others, have left us curious details on this subject. It 

 is fortunate that we are now pretty well rid of all the rubbish 

 of remedies of this kind, which, like an useless and trouble- 

 some scaffolding, so long obstructed the entrance into the 

 sanctuary of medicine. 



The common toad {rana bufo) is too well known to need 

 any external description, even if that had been omitted or left 

 deficient in the text. It usually sojourns in obscure and 

 sheltered places, and passes the winter in holes, which it hol- 

 lows for itself. It is found throughout Europe, is common 

 in this country, and abounds greatly in the neighbourhood 

 of Paris, where it is frequent in gardens. In March and 

 April it reproduces in the water, or otherwise ; the female 

 proceeds to the water, drawing the male with her. She pro- 

 duces small and innumerable eggs, united, by transparent 

 jelly, into two cords, often a hundred and thirty feet in 

 length, which the male draws after him with his hind feet. 

 The tadpole is blackish, and is remarkably small when it 

 loses its tail and gets its feet. The branchial aperture is on 

 the left side. Daudin tells us, in opposition to the opinion of 



