Clafs III. TirOc A wD: | 18 
alas, they feem only to have rendered a horrible 
complaint more loathfome. 
In a word, we may confider the toad as an animal 
that has neither good nor harm in it; that being a 
defencelefs creature, nature has furnifhed it, inftead 
of arms, with a moft difgufting deformity, that 
{trikes into almoft every Being capable of annoying 
it, a ftrong repugnancy to meddle with fo hideous 
and threatening an appearance. 
The time of their propagation is very early in 
the fpring: at that feafon the females are feen crawl- 
ing about oppreffed by the males, who continue op 
them for fome hours, and adhere fo faft as to tear 
the very fkin from the Parts they ftick to. We 
are uncertain whether they are viviparous: Linnzus® — 
fays they are, and diverts us with a report he had ~~ 
heard, that the male acts the midwife to the female “~ 
in parturition. 
To conclude this account with the marvellous, this 
animal is faid to have often been found in the midf 
of folid rocks, and even in the centre of growing 
trees, imprifoned in a fmall hollow, to which there 
was not the leaft adit or entrance **: how the ani- 
mal breathed, or how it fubfifted (fappofing the 
poffibiliry of its confinement) is paft our compre- 
henfion. Plo#’s+ folution of this phenomenon is far 
from fatisfactory ; yet as we have the great Bacon’ Soe 
authority for the fact, we do not entirely deny our 
affent to it. 
* Syft. Nat. 355. ** Plot's Hif. Staff. 247, + P. 240. 
3 Nat. Hift. Ceat. vi. Exp. 570. 
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