320 
The Animcd-Lore of Shahspeare's Time. 
exuding a fluid has given rise to the fable of their incom¬ 
bustibility. 
Falstajf, after many uncomplimentary remarks on 
Bardolptis personal appearance, exclaims, “ I have main¬ 
tained that salamander of yours with fire any time 
this two and thirty years; God reward me for it! ” 
(1 Henry IV., iii. 3, 52). 
A lizard in the midst of flames was adopted by 
Francis I. as his badge, with the legend, Nutrisco et 
extinguo, “ I nourish and extinguish.” 
“You spotted snakes with double tongue. 
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; 
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong; 
Come not near our fairy queen.” 
(.Midsummer Night’s Bream , ii. 2, 9.) 
“ All things that breede in the mudde are not evets,” 
writes Lyly, either quoting or originating a 
J * L proverb; but it was quite sufficient that the 
harmless Newt or Eft was found in damp, cold places 
that it should have gained the reputation of being* 
spiteful and poisonous. Timon of Athens classes “ the 
gilded newt” with “all the abhorred births below crisp 
heaven ” (iv. 2, 182). “ The wall-newt and the water ” 
formed part of Poor Tom's unsavoury diet. 
Frogs as well as toads were banished from Ireland, 
though upon what pretext it is hard to say. 
i o c , > Giraldus Cambrensis reports that a solitary 
frog was found in his time in a meadow, near Waterford, 
and brought as a curiosity to court. It was pronounced 
by the best authorities to be an omen of an invasion of 
the English. As it was quite impossible that this frog* 
could have been born and bred on Irish soil, the learned 
writer accounts for its appearance by the suggestion that 
it must have been wafted across the channel on a cloud ; or 
a ship might have brought it over from some neighbouring 
