Chap. IX,] 
BATEACHIANS. 
319 
In the shrubberies around my house at Colombo the 
graceful little tree-frogs 1 were to be found in great 
numbers, sheltered under broad leaves to protect them 
from the scorching sun ; — some of them utter a sharp 
metallic sound at night, similar to that produced by 
smacking the lips. 
In the gardens and grounds toads 2 crouch in the 
shade, and pursue the flies and minute coleoptera. In 
Ceylon, as in Europe, these creatures suffer from the bad 
renown of injecting a poison into the wound inflicted 
by their bite. 3 The main calumny is confuted by the 
fact that no toad has yet been discovered furnished with 
any teeth whatsoever; but the obnoxious repute still 
attaches to the milky exudation sometimes perceptible 
from glands situated on either side behind the head; 
nevertheless experiments have shown, that though acrid, 
the secretions of the toad are incapable of exciting more 
than a slight erythema on the most delicate skins. The 
smell is, however, fetid and offensive, and hence toads 
are less exposed to the attacks of carnivorous animals 
and of birds than frogs, in which such glands do not exist. 
In the class of Eeptiles, those only are included in 
the order of Batrachians which undergo a metamor- 
phosis before attaining maturity ; and as they offer the 
only example amongst Vertebrate animals of this mar- 
vellous transformation, they are justly considered as the 
lowest in the scale, with the exception of fishes, which 
remain during life in that stage of development which 
is only the commencement of existence to a frog. 
1 Polypedates maculatus, Gray. of " King Asoka attempted to de- 
2 Bufo melanostictus, Schneid. stroy the great t>o-tree (at Ma- 
3 In Ceylon this error is as old as gadha) with the poisoned fang of 
the third century, b. c, when, as a toad." — Ch. xx. p. 122. 
the Mahawanso tells us, the wife 
