3904 On the Persecution of Birds and Animals, 



his hands ? Where the peasant who has neglected the opportunity to 

 maltreat the insect, be it cockchaffer, or butterfly, or any other, that 

 has come within his grasp ? I fear we should search in vain for such 

 kindly feeling amongst the uneducated part of our community ; and 

 too often is their example followed by those whose education should 

 have taught them that they have no right wantonly to destroy that life 

 which the universal Creator has given His creatures for their enjoyment. 

 As an instance of this thoughtless cruelty, I must give an account 

 that has just come to my notice. Some labourers were pulling down 

 an old wall, in the thickness of which they found one of those pheno- 

 mena, so frequently heard of and so unsatisfactorily accounted for, 

 a toad completely embedded in stone and mortar. " There was no 

 doubt," said the labourer who described it, " that he had been there 

 for a great number of years, for there was no hole or chink by which 

 he could have entered or left the place of his long sojourn."" "Well," 

 said the listener to his account, " but are you sure that the toad was 

 alive when you found it ? " " No doubt of that, Sir," said the man, 

 " for he crawled out of his round hole, and was moving away, when I 

 knocked him on the head with my pickaxe." So here was this poor 

 harmless creature, whose long incarceration in his gloomy dungeon 

 might have excited compassion in his favour, suddenly released from 

 his prison, only to be slain by his liberator ! Well might this toad 

 (if toads be musical) have sung those touching lines at the close of 

 ' The Prisoner of Chillon : ' — 



*' It might be months, or years, or days, 



I kept no count — I took no note, 

 I had no hope my eyes to raise, 



And clear them of their dreary mote ; 

 At last men came to set me free, 



I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where, 

 It was at length the same to me 

 Fettered or fetterless to be, 



I learn'd to love despair. 

 And thus when they appear'd at last, 

 And all my bonds aside were cast, 

 These heavy walls to me had grown 

 A hermitage, — and all my own ! 

 And half I felt as they were come 

 To tear me from my second home." 



It is marvellous how naturally the death of the toad ensued in this 

 man's mind upon his discovery ; and yet, there is no reason to set 



