4*
The reptiles, few, as they are, I am not acquainted with, fo
well as I could wifh, with regard to their natural hiflory. There
is a degree of dubioufnefs and obfcurity attending the propagation
of this clafs of animals, fomething analagous to that of the
cryptogamia in tire fexual fyftem of plants : and the cafe is the
fame with regard to fome of the fillies; as the eel, &c.
The method in which toads procreate and bring forth feems to
be very much in the dark. Some authors fay that they ate
viviparous : and yet Ray claffes them among his oviparous animals
; and is filent with regard to the manner of their bringing
forth. Perhaps they may be era j*su uotmoi, eJu St ^mrStut, as is
known to be the cafe with the viper.
The copulation of frogs (or at leal! the appearance of i t ; for
Swammerdam proves that the male has no penis intrans) is notorious
to every body : becaufe we fee them flicking upon each others
backs for a month together in the fpring : and yet I never faw,
or read, of toads being obferved in the fame fituation. It is
ffrange that the matter with regard to the venom of toads has not
been yet fettled. That they are not noxious to fome animals is
plain: for ducks, buzzards, owls, ftone curlews, and fnakes,
eat them, to my knowledge, with impunity. And I well remember
the time, but was not eye-witnefs to the fact (though numbers of
perfons were) when a quack, at this village, ate a toad to make the
country-people flare; afterwards he drank oil.
I have been informed alfo, from undoubted authority, that fome
ladies (ladies you will fay of peculiar tafle) took a fancy to a toad
which they nourifhed fummer after fummer, for many years, till
he grew to a monftrous fize, with the maggots which turn to flefh
flies. The reptile ufed to come forth every evening from an hole
under the garden-fteps ; and was taken up, after fupper, on the
table
table to be fed. B,ut at lafl a tame raven, kenning him as he put
Forth his head, gave him fuch a fevere flroke with his horny beak
as put out one eye.' After this accident the creature languifhed
for fome time and died.
I need not remind a gentleman of your extenfive reading of
»the excellent account there is from Mr. Derham, in Ray s Wifdom of
God in the Creation (p. 36.5), concerning the migration of frogs
from their breeding ponds. In this account he at once fubverts
that foolifh opinion of their dropping from the clouds in rain ;
fhewing that it is from the grateful coolnefs and moifture of thole
fhowers that they are tempted to fet out on their travels, which
"they defer till thofe fall. Frogs are as yet in their tadpole ftate;
..but, in a few weeks, our lanes, paths, fields, will fwarm for a few
days with myriads of. thofe emigrants, no larger than my little
finger nail. Swammerdam gives a moft accurate account of
the method and fituation in which the male impregnates the
fpawn of the female. How wonderful is the ceconomy of Provi-
dence with regard to the limbs of fo vile a reptile ! While it is an
.aquatic it has a fifh-like tail, and no legs.: as foon as the legs
fprout, the tail drops off as .ufelefs, and the animal betakes itfelf
to the land!
Merret, I truft, is widely miftaiken when he advances that the
rana arborea is an Englifh reptile; i t abounds in Germany and
Switzerland.
It is to be remembered that the falamandra aquatica of Ray (the
water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at the angler s bait, and
is often caught on his hook. I ufed to take it for granted that
the Jalamandra aquatica was hatched, lived, and died, in the water.
But John Ellis, Efq. F. R. S. (the coralline Ellis) afferts, in a
letter to the Royal Society, dated June the 5th, 1766, in his ac-
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