In one of his lectures, dealing with this subject, he pointed out how a good basin of "arrowroot" can be made in ten minutes from two or three fair-sized potatoes; for as soon as the starch has been thoroughly "washed," it is ready for the boiling milk. It is essential the milk or water should be actually boiling, or the granules of starch do not burst and so make the required "jelly." The school children of Hitcham were by no means left out in the cold as to the knowledge of natural phenomena. They were early instructed as to the harmless nature of toads and slow-worms, which were very abundant, on the one hand; and of the danger of handling a viper, on the other. This last is the only poisonous reptile in England, and easily recognisable by the lozenge-shaped marks down the back. Having specimens in spirit, they had no excuse for confounding them; but, as always happens with children, if there is an alternative of any sort between which they are well taught the difference, some one is sure to get them transposed in his memory. Consequently, a boy came up to the Rectory with his arm greatly swollen; he had been bitten by a viper which he had taken up, thinking it was a slow-worm, _because_, as he said, it had the marks along its back! Besides the tiny harvest mice, he at one time possessed for some two or three years two "pet" Jersey toads, or the great _crapaud_. They were kept in a wire-gauze cage, and it was our delight as children to feed these monsters every morning. A butterfly net swept over the lawn was sure to secure all sorts of flying and jumping creatures. The lid of the cage being lifted up, the net was turned inside out over the toads, and quickly closed. Then began the matutinal breakfast. They would never notice anything that did not move. Seeing, however, say a grasshopper, stir, the toad would stalk it like a cat after a bird; and when within tongue-shot, out came its long tongue like a flash of lightning, and the grasshopper vanished in the flash. Worms were a great delight. Snapping up one in the middle, the two ends were carefully cleaned from earth by passing them between the toes two or three times; then followed a mighty gulp, and all was over.