234 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
the body of an oak tree, without the smallest access on any 
side, either for nourishment or air, and yet taken out alive 
and perfect ! Stories of this kind it would be as rash to con- 
tradict, as it is difficult to believe; we have the highest autho- 
rities bearing witness to their truth, and yet the whole ana- 
logy of nature seems to arraign them of falsehood. Bacon 
asserts, that toads are found in this manner; Dr. Plot asserts 
the same; there is to this day, a marble chimney-piece at 
Chatsworth with the print of the toad upon it, and tradition 
of the manner in which it was found. In the Memoirs of 
the Academy of Sciences, there is an account of a toad found 
alive and healthy in the heart of a very thick elm, without 
the smallest entrance or egress*. In the year 1731, there 
was another found near Nantz, in the heart of an old oak, 
without the smallest issue to its cell; and the discoverer 
was of opinion, from the size of the tree, that the animal 
could not have been confined there less than eighty or a 
hundred years, without sustenance, and without air. 
Of this animal there are several varieties; such as the wa- 
ter and the land toad, which probably differ only in the 
ground-colour of their skin. In the first, it is more inclining 
to ash-colour, with brown spots ; in the other, the colour is 
brown, approaching to black. The water-toad is not so large 
as the other; but both equally breed in that element. The 
size of the toad with us is generally from two to four inches 
long ; but in the fenny countries of Europe, they are seen 
much larger ; and not less than a common crab. But this is 
nothing to what they are found in some of the tropical cli- 
mates, where travellers often, for the first time, mistake a 
toad for a tortoise. Their usual size is from six to seven 
inches; but there are some still larger, and as broad as a plate. 
Of these, some are beautifully streaked and coloured; some 
studded over, as if with pearls ; others bristled with horns 
or spines; some have the head distinct from the body, while 
others have it so sunk in, that the animal appears without 
a head. With us the opinion of its raining toads and frogs 
has long been justly exploded; but it still is entertained in 
the tropical countries, and that not only by the savage 
natives, but the more refined settlers ; who are apt enough 
to add the prejudices of other nations to their own. 
It would be a tedious, as well as a useless, task to enter 
into all the minute discriminations of these animals, as found 
in different countries or places; but the Pi-pal , or the Sufi' 
nam Toad , is too strange a creature not to require an exact 
description. 
* Vide the Year 1719 
