Many toads, for instance the Common Toad and the Pantherine Toad, assume a peculiar attitude when surprised. Instead of blowing themselves up by filling their lungs with air, they raise themselves upon their four limbs as high as possible, but turning the back towards the enemy in a slanting position, either to the right or to the left side, apparently in order to present as much surface as possible, in other words to look their biggest. Some of my specimens hibernated regularly for a few months, burying themselves completely in loose, dry soil, under leaves, or,–a favourite place,–in a heap of cocoa-nut fibre. Others, and this applies also to English specimens transferred from the garden into the greenhouse, are lively all the year round, but even they withdraw for an occasional sleep of a few weeks at any time of the year. The whole family of large toads came to a sad end after four years, when they were put into new temporary quarters, a {174}slate-bottomed terrarium. Being kept during my absence in wringing wet moss, which became fouled by their own excretions, they contracted a mysterious disease from which they never recovered. They are rather averse to wet surroundings, and except during the short pairing season they live in cool, shady places, preferably with just a little dampness. Occasionally they take a soaking bath. One specimen, living in the garden, repaired during the hot and dry summer nights to a standpipe in the garden, enjoying the occasional drips of water. Considering the amount of snails and other noxious creatures destroyed by them during their regular nocturnal hunts, toads are eminently useful creatures. Nevertheless, they suffer much through the stupid superstition of people who ought to know better. It is difficult to find a gentle, absolutely harmless and useful creature that is more maligned than the European toad. It brings ill-luck to the house, the "slimy toad" spits venom, sucks the cows' udders and after that destroys their power of giving milk; it poisons the milk in the cellar, and a certain builder's horse, which was grazing in the grounds of the Cambridge Museums, and died there from a large concrement obstructing its bowels, was solemnly declared to have swallowed one of my toads. Silly superstitions, owing to faulty, or rather entire want of, observation! The toad is not slimy, but dry; it is often found in buildings, where it keeps down the woodlice; it cannot suck, nor does it drink at all; it does not spit venom, but becomes covered with milky white and very strong poison when in acute agony, for instance when trodden upon; and unless the big skin-glands be forcibly squeezed, there will be no squirting. Therefore, leave it alone, or put down food on its evening beat, and it will soon come to know and to recognise its friends.