Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1873-08-21


was supposed to partake somewhat of the
power of the fabulous basilisk in the abil-
ity to fascinate any person it looked upon
by the glance of its eye. In the basilisk,
indeed, this power was fatal to the life of
the person beheld-a gift never claimed
for the toad.
But if this part of the zoology of the
toad has enshrined popular error of long
standing, the nature of its food appears to
have been no better understood. The
"gentle lady welded to the Moor" makes
her jealous, fiery husband exclaim in the
agony of his fever-fit:-
I'D rather be toad,
And live upon the vapor Of dungeon,
Than keep corner in the thing love
For others uses"
In which, though the sentiment may be
noble, the science is certainly false. The
food of snakes, according to Shakespeare,
was hardly more material than this aerial
tOad-diet. In "Pericles" he says
And both like serpents are who though they feed
On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed"
Exactly reversing the alchemy of the bee,
which from the same source distils sweet
and wholesome honey.
The notion that toads can live without
material food is, however, both more gen.
orally believed and better supported than
that touching the jewel in its head. NJ
merous accounts, apparently well anthem
ticated, relate the finding OF toads en-
tombed in the centre Of aged trees when
cleft open by the woodman's wedge, or
enclosed in chambers of chalk or stone
until disinterred by the miner, but still
alive, and seemingly in good health.
Their presence in such places was &C
counted for, in the case of the trees, by
the supposition that they had either climb
ed, or been dropped by some bird of prey,
into the hollow trunk; and, being unable
to extricate themselves, had been gradu-
ally shut in by growth of wood over
head. In the case of chalk or stone, it
was believed that the egg had been wash
ed by floods through some minute crack
or crevice into an already-existing cham
Der in the mine, which egg had Matched
ing recluse in question. Both of which
explanations of the mystery.
So persistently, indeed, have such
stories been repeated, that DR.. auckland,
formerly Dean of WESTMINSTER, determined
to put the matter to a test by enclosing
For this purpose he had twenty four holes
excavated in two blocks of stone--twelve
of them in a block of course ooitic lime
stone, and twelve of them in block of
close-grained silicious sandstone. The
holes were circular-thosc in the lime
stone we've twelve inches deep by five in
diameter, and those in the sandstone were
of the same diameter, but only half the
depth Each cell had groove at the
top, fitted to receive a circular plate of
glass, with slate over it, and when closed
was rendered impervious to air and water
by coating of soft clay.
In each of the twenty -four cells an I'M
fortunate toad was placed and sealed
down on given day, having been first
carefully weighed, and the blocks of
stone were buried in the earth three feet
deep On opening the cells thirteen
months after, all the toads in the smaller
cells were found dead and much decayed.
The greater part of those in the Oolite
were still alive, and, stranger still, more
than one had actually increased in
weight! But in at least one of such cases
of increase, the cover of the cell was
found to be slightly cracked-sufficiently
so, perhaps, to admit small insects out of
the surrounding earth. All the survivors
were then buried again, and at tire end OF
the second year they were also found
dead. "st
During the last incarceration they were
frequently watched through the glass cover
of their cells, and always appeared to be
wide awake with open eyes, and in no
state approaching torpor; but on each
successive examination they were, OBJ
served to be growing " fine by degrees
and beautifully less" until at last they
died of sheer emaciation. All those con-
fined in trees in the same fashion were
dead at the end of the first year, and
much decayed The cells were in apple
trees in the north side of the tree, five by
three inches large.
That the toad does olive on the vapor OF
a dungeon" appears therefore to be con
clusively disproved. And such aerial toads
seem to be as much creatures of the poets
brain as the fiower-eating serpents OF the
same great writer.
The explanation of such belief seems to
be very simple, and to arise from the
enormous quickness with which the toad
seizes and sucks in the minute insects
which form its food
If the reptile be placed in melon
frame in which there are ants, and care
fully watched, it will be seen to approach
the ants, and the ants will disappear
down its throat, in facD, but the actual
seizure will not be observed. 1t should
be noticed that the tongue of the toad is
placed in an opposite direction to that or
gan in ourselves-that is, with the tongues
point toward the throat. When seizing
it's prey, it filings out the glutinous tongue
with amazing velocity, and the organ in
regaining its natural position deposits
the captured insect in the gullet OF the
toad.
But the reptile, if not poisonous itself,
is at least equally careless of poison in
others, and swallows bees, wasps, and
other such unconsidered trifles with great
gusto and perfect impunity.
Toads are in this way sometimes very
injurious to beekeepers, sitting placidly
under the entrance to their hives, and
quietly swapping up any torpid bee which
happens to fall on to the ground. Beetles,
too, with horny cases and sharp claws
they "realize" with equal indifference,
cody swallowing them, leaving. them to
discuss the question of their hardness and
horniness with their own potent digestive
organs-Belgruuta Magazine.