42 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 
That they are not noxious to some animals is plain : for ducks, 
buzzards, owls, stone curlews, and snakes, eat them, to my knowledge, 
with impunity. And I well remember the time, but was not eye- 
witness to the fact (though numbers of persons were) when a quack, at 
this village, ate a toad to make the country-people stare ; afterwards he 
drank oil.* 
I have been informed also, from undoubted authority, that some 
ladies (ladies you will say of peculiar taste) took a fancy to a toad, 
which they nourished summer after summer, for many years, till he 
grew to a monstrous size, with the maggots which turn to flesh-flies. 
The reptile used to come forth every evening from a hole under the 
garden-steps ; and was taken up, after supper, on the table to be fed. 
But at last a tame raven, kenning him as he put forth his head, 
gave him such a severe stroke with his horny beak as put out 
one eye. After this accident the creature languished for some time 
and died. 
I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive reading of the 
/ excellent account there is from Mr. Derham, in Ray's " Wisdom of God 
in the Creation," (p. 365), concerning the migration of frogs from their 
breeding ponds. In this account he at once subverts that foolish 
opinion of their dropping from the clouds in rain ; showing that it is 
from the grateful coolness and moisture of those showers that they are 
tempted to set out on their travels, which they defer till those fall. 
Frogs are as yet in their tadpole state ; but, in a few weeks, our lanes, 
paths, fields, will swarm for a few days with myriads of those emigrants, 
no larger than my little finger nail. Swammerdam gives a most 
accurate account of the method and situation in which the male 
* This is a letter upon reptiles, the natural history of which, as well as that of 
fishes, White had little opportunity of studying. Toads procreate exactly in the 
same manner as frogs, and both are oviparous, the bead-like chains which are 
often seen in pools in spring, as if they were looped over each other, is the newly 
deposited spawn of the former. The venom of toads is discarded as a fable, but 
there is an excretion from the skin which can be exuded upon irritation, and 
serves for protection. It causes the excessive secretion of saliva in the mouth of a 
dog, and evidently gives pain. Mr. Herbert says a pike will seize a toad, but 
immediately disgorges it, while a frog is swallowed. 
There has always been an aversion or disgust at toads. The older poets clothed 
him in a garb ugly and venomous," and one of our master-bards has likened the 
Evil Spirit to him, as a semblance of all that is devilish or disgusting. 
Him they found 
Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve, 
Assaying with all his devilish art to reach 
The organs of her fancy. 
Thus we are taught, and the feeling is handed down from family to family, to 
loath a harmless animal. The bite is innocent of any after consequences, and we 
never saw a toad attempt to bite. The exudation of the skin is only used in self- 
defence. They are extremely useful in the destruction of insects, and they will 
be found to be valuable as well as amusing assistants in a greenhouse or con- 
servatory. Sir Joseph Banks wrote — " I have from my childhood, in conformity 
with the precepts of a mother void of all imaginary fear, been in the constant 
habit of taking toads in my hand, holding them there some time, and applying 
them to my face and nose, as it may happen. My motive for doing this very 
frequently is to inculcate the opinion I have held, since I was told by my mother, 
that the toad is actually a harmless animal ; and to whose manner of life man is 
certainly under some obligation, as its food is chiefly those insects which devour 
his crops and annoy him in various ways. " 
