I must record my own experiences with their congeners, the toads. We were annoyed by flies, and I noticed an old toad creep stealthily from under the house logs, wait patiently near a patch of sunshine on the floor, and as soon as two or three flies, attracted by the sun's warmth, drew near its post, dart out its long slender tongue, and so catch them all one after another. Improving upon the hint, we afterwards regularly scattered a few grains of sugar, to attract more flies within the old fellow's reach, and thus kept the shanty comparatively clear of those winged nuisances, and secured quiet repose for ourselves in the early mornings. Another toad soon joined the first one, and they became so much at home as to allow us to scratch their backs gently with a stick, when they would heave up their puffed sides to be scrubbed. These toads swallow mice and young ducks, and in their turn fall victims to garter and other snakes. During the following year, 1834, the Government opened up a settlement on the Sunnidale road, employing the new immigrants in road making, chopping and clearing, and putting up log shanties; and gave them the land so cleared to live on, but without power of sale. In this way, two or three hundred settlers, English, Irish and Highland Scotch, chiefly the latter, were located in Sunnidale. A Scottish gentleman, a Mr. H. C. Young, was appointed local immigrant agent, and spent some time with us. Eventually it was found that the laud was too aguish for settlement, being close to a large cedar swamp extending several miles to the Nottawasaga River; and on the representation of the agent, it was in 1835 determined to transfer operations to the adjoining township of Nottawasaga, in which the town of Collingwood is now situated. It was about this time that the prospect of a railway from Toronto to the Georgian Bay was first mooted, the mouth of the Nottawasaga River being the expected terminus. A talented Toronto engineer whose name I think was Lynn, published a pamphlet containing an outline route for the railroad, which was extended through to the North-West. To him, doubtless, is due the first practical suggestion of a Canadian Pacific Railway. We, in Sunnidale, were confidently assured that the line would pass directly through our own land, and many a weary sigh at hope deferred did the delusion cost us. CHAPTER XIII. SOME GATHERINGS FROM NATURAL HISTORY.