Browne, in his exposure of the various popular errors current in his time, presently arrives at this belief, but finds himself unable to express any very definite opinion, and takes refuge in compromise. “As for the stone,” quoth he, “commonly called a Toad-stone, which is presumed to be found in the head of that animall, we first conceive it not a thing impossible, nor is there any substantiall reason why in a Toad there may not be found such hard and lapideous concretions; for the like we daily observe in the heads of Fishes, as Codds, Carps, and Pearches. Though it be not impossible, yet it is surely very rare, as we are induced to believe from inquiry of our own; from the triall of many who have been deceived and the frustrated search of Porta, who, upon the explorement of many, could scarce finde one.[112] Nor is it only of rarity, but may be doubted whether it be of existency, or really any such stone in the head of a Toad at all. For though Lapidaries and questonary enquires affirm it, yet the writers of Mineralls and natural speculators are of another belief, conceiving the stones which bear this name to be a Minerall concretion, not to be found in animalls but in fields. What therefore best reconcileth these divided determinations may be a middle opinion; that of these stones some are minerall and to be found in the earth; some animall, to be met with in Toads, at least by the induration of their cranies. The first are many and manifold, to be found in Germany[113] and other parts, the last are fewer in number, and in substance not unlike the stones in Carps’ heads. This is agreeable unto the determination of Aldrovandus, and is also the judgment of the learned Spigelius in his Epistle unto Pignorius.” If only a toad with an indurated cranium could be discovered, everything would fall into its right place! Through the Middle Ages men believed that the toad exercised the power of fascination not only upon its insect prey, but upon all other creatures, including man himself, and even so far back as the days of the classical writers it was a fully accepted belief that whosoever had the misfortune to be looked squarely in the eyes by a toad would find that, basilisk-like, the gaze to him meant death. The belief that the crocodile shed tears over his prey is a very ancient one; various motives have been assigned for this grief, but the generally accepted belief is that the whole proceeding is a fraud, perpetrated with the idea of attracting sympathetic passers-by within reach of his formidable jaws; hence he has been accepted as a symbol of dissimulation. We get an excellent illustration of this in Shakespeare’s King Henry VIII., where Henry is said by Queen Margaret to be— “Too full of foolish pity; and Gloster’s show Beguiles him, as the mournful crocodile With sorrow snares relenting passengers.”[114] Spenser, in the Faerie Queene,[115] deals equally clearly and explicitly with the same fancy in the lines—