358 
NOTES TO THE 
The legend of toads curing people of cancer and other com- 
plaints, says Mr. Davy, is all " Old Mother IIuhha7rl." A 
hundred years ago people used to make a living by quackery 
of all sorts, and servants and farm-labourers used to put about 
that they had been cured by a toad." Even in our time there 
is always some quack doctor about who says he can cure cancer. 
I am afraid this is impossible. 
The cancer-doctor of White's time had evidently set up toads 
as a remedy for this disease. At my father's rectory, near Islip, 
a woman once gave her child a half-grown frog to suck, as she 
had been told it would cure the thrush round the child's mouth. 
It is astonishing how tliese old relics of wonderful cures remain 
in the recollection of country people. When with the 2nd Life 
Guards at Aldershot I heard the story of a man having been 
cured of some disease — fits, I think — by moss taken from the 
skull of a highwayman, whose skeleton had been for many 
years hanging in chains on a hill near the camp. 
N"ewts are often dug out at places one mile from water. 
They are found ten inches down in the ground. They are found 
by men when chrysalis-digging round roots of trees and along 
sides of old walls ; this is where the best chrysalis hunting-ground 
is situated. Mr. Davy can discover the haunts of caterpillars 
where there is clear ground underneath the tree, by looking for 
the excrement which has fallen from the trees ; he then shakes 
off the caterpillars. Some caterpillars are fetched down by the 
first sudden jerk ; some, on the contrary, will hold the tighter 
after the first jerk ; some web up " and come into fly the same 
year ; some burrow in the ground till the next spring. 
Frog Culture, p. 54. — An American pisciculturist proposes 
that some enterprising persons should turn their attention to frog- 
culture ; and he gives careful directions for procuring and treat- 
ing the spawn of frogs. The spawn will hatch in about fifteen 
days, and if the tadpoles and young frogs are placed in a suit- 
able position, they may be easily reared, and a large profit made. 
The mode of feeding the frogs is, to place pieces of meat, or 
other substances, to attract the flies, upon which the frogs feed ; 
they will also eat maggots of decayed meat, and even the meat 
itself. It appears that the demand for frogs in America is 
increasing, and in that case a frog-farm might be made a good 
investment. 
The Americans have it that when the bull-frogs croak the 
gentlemen frogs sit on a log and say " More rum ; " the Lady frogs 
croak ' Cider too.' If the reader will pronounce these words very 
