90 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



squinancy-wort, daisies, and milkwort, both white 

 and blue. 



The toad, as a rule, strikes one as rather an 

 ugly creature, but this one sitting on the green 

 turf, with those variously coloured fairy flowers all 

 about him, looked almost beautiful. He was very 

 dark, almost black, and with his shining topaz eyes 

 had something of the appearance of a yellow-eyed 

 black cat. I sat down by his side and picked him 

 up, which action he appeared to regard as an 

 unwarrantable liberty on my part ; but when I 

 placed him on my knee and began stroking his 

 blackish corrugated back with my finger-tips his 

 anger vanished, and one could almost imagine his 

 golden eyes and wide lipless mouth smiling with 

 satisfaction. 



A good many flies were moving about at that 

 spot — a pretty fly whose name I do not know, a 

 little bigger than a house-fly, all a shining blue, 

 with head and large eyes a bright red. These flies 

 kept lighting on my hand, and by and by I 

 cautiously moved a hand until a fly on it was 

 within tongue-distance of the toad, whereupon the 

 red tongue flicked out like lightning and the fly 

 vanished. Again the process was repeated, and 

 altogether I put over half-a-dozen flies in his way, 

 and they all vanished in the same manner, so 

 quickly that the action eluded my sight. One 

 moment and a blue and red-headed fly was on my 

 hand sucking the moisture from the skin, and then, 

 lo ! he was gone, while the toad still sat there 



