62 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
who, after expressing compassion for her situation, told her that 
if she would make such an application of livings toads as is 
mentioned she would be well.'' Now is it likely that this un- 
known gentleman should express so much tenderness for this 
single sufferer, and not feel any for 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 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 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 larvos: for 
the larvcB 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. 
LETTER XIX. To T. PENNANT, Esa. 
DEAR SIR, Selhorne, August 17, 1768. 
I HAVE now, past dispute, made out three distinct species of the 
willow- wrens (motacilloB) which constantly and invariably use 
distinct notes. But, at the same time, I am obliged to confess 
that I know nothing of your willow-lark.f In my letter of ApriJ 
the 18th, I had told you peremptorily that I knew your willow- 
lark, but had not seen it then : but, when I came to procure it, 
* It will be seen, by reference to the note to p. 54, that Mr. White here confounds the finned 
state of the adult newts with the larva, a mistake in which he is very far from being singular. — ; 
Ed. 
t Brit. Zool. edit. 1776, octavo, p. 381. Note. — The sedge-reedling {salicaria phrugmitis) is the 
bird here intended, — Ed. 
