The Andaman Islanders dwell at a very considerable distance from Australia and from the Iroquois, and, in the present condition of the natives of Australia and Andaman, neither could possibly visit the other. The frog in the Andaman version is called a toad, and he came to swallow the waters in the following way: One day a woodpecker was eating honey high up in the boughs of a tree. Far below, the toad was a witness of the feast, and asked for some honey. "Well, come up here, and you shall have some," said the woodpecker. "But how am I to climb?" "Take hold of that creeper, and I will draw you up," said the woodpecker; but all the while he was bent on a practical joke. So the toad got into a bucket he happened to possess, and fastened the bucket to the creeper. "Now, pull!" Then the woodpecker raised the toad slowly to the level of the bough where the honey was, and presently let him down with a run, not only disappointing the poor toad, but shaking him severely. The toad went away in a rage and looked about him for revenge. A happy thought occurred to him, and he drank up all the water of the rivers and lakes. Birds and beasts were perishing, woodpeckers among them, of thirst. The toad, overjoyed at his success, wished to add insult to the injury, and, very thoughtlessly, began to dance in an irritating manner at his foes. But then the stolen waters gushed out of his mouth in full volume, and the drought soon ended. One of the most curious points in this myth is the origin of the quarrel between the woodpecker and the toad. The same beginning--the tale of an insult put on an animal by hauling up and letting him down with a run--occurs in an African Marchen.(1) (1) Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 429, 430; Brinton, American Hero Myths, i. 55. Cf. also Relations de la Nouvelle France, 1636, 1640, 1671; (Sagard, Hist. du Canada, 1636, p. 451;) Journal Anthrop. Inst., 1881. Now this strangely diffused story of the slaying of the frog which had swallowed all the water seems to be a savage myth of which the more heroic conflict of Indra with Vrittra (the dragon which had swallowed all the waters) is an epic and sublimer version.(1) "The heavenly water, which Vrittra withholds from the world, is usually the prize of the contest." (1) Ludwig, Der Rig-Veda, iii. p. 337. See postea, "Divine Myths of India".