(53 
NATURAL HISTORY 
she went to some cliurcli wliero there was a vast crowd ; on 
going into a pew, she was accosted by a strange clergy- 
man ; 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 for the 
many thousands that daily languish under this terrible dis- 
order ? 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 mankind ? 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 appear- 
ance 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 circumstance at all invalidates the assertion that 
they are larvce : for the larvce of insects are full of eggs, 
which they exclude the instant they enter their last state. 
The water-eft is continually climbing over the brims of the 
vessel, within which we keep it in water, and wandering 
away : and people every summer see numbers crawling out 
of the pools where they are hatched, 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.^ 
^ This applies only to tlie adult ; the young during the first months 
of their existence have external gills. — Ed. 
2 The appearance of fin-like expansions on the back and tail of the 
several species of Triton is confined to the male, and is only found in 
that sex at the season of reproduction. — Ed. 
