60 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
virulent cancer, slie went to some church where there was a vast 
crowd : on going into a pew, she was accosted by a strange 
clergyman ; who, after expressing compassion for her situation, 
told her that if she would make such an application of living toads 
as is mentioned she would be well." Now is it likely that this 
unknown gentleman should express so much tenderness for this 
single sufferer, and not feel any lor the many thousands that 
daily languish under this terrible disorder ? Would he not have 
made use of this invaluable nostrum for his own emolument '; 
or, at least, by some means of publication or other, have found a 
method of making it public for the good of niankind ? In short, 
this woman (as it appears to me) having set up for a cancer- 
doctress, finds it expedient to amuse the country with this dark 
and mysterious relation. 
The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least appearance 
of any gills ; for want of which it is continually rising to the 
surface of the water to take in fresh air. I opened a big-bellied 
one indeed, and found it full of spawn. Not that this circum- 
stance at all invalidates the assertion that they are larvae ; Ibr 
the larvae of insects are full of eggs, which they exclude the in- 
stant they enter their last state. The water-eft is continually 
climbing over the brims of the vessel within which we keep it 
in watei', and wandering away; and people every summer see 
numbers crawling out of the pools where they are Latched, 
up the dry banks. There are varieties of them, differing in 
colour ; and some have fins up their tail and back, and some 
have not. 
Selborxe, Jnly 27, 1768. 
