/>
relating marvellous stories about them; such, for instance, as that if

they are brought into the midst of a concourse of people, silence will

instantly prevail; as also that, by throwing into boiling water, a small

bone that is found in their right side, the vessel will immediately

cool, and the water refuse to boil again until it has been removed. This

bone, they say, may be found by exposing a dead toad to ants, and

letting them eat away the flesh; after which the bones must be put into

the vessel one by one.



"On the other hand, again, in the left side of this reptile there is

another bone, they say, which, when thrown into water, has all the

appearance of making it boil, and the name given to which is 'apocynon'

(averting dogs). This bone it is said has the property of assuaging

the fury of dogs, and, if put in the drink, of conciliating love, and

ending discord and strife. Worn, too, as an amulet, it acts as an

aphrodisiac, we are told."



Topsell writes so diffusely on the virtues of these "toad stones" that I

can only afford space for a portion of his remarks:--"There be many late

Writers, which doe affirme that there is a precious stone in the head of

a Toade, whose opinions (because they attribute much to the vertue of

this stone) is good to examine in this place.... There be many that

weare these stones in Ringes, beeing verily perswaded that they keepe

them from all manner of grypings and paines of the belly, and the small

guttes. But the Art, (as they term it) is in taking of it out, for they

say it must be taken out of the head alive, before the Toade be dead,

with a peece of cloth of the colour of redde Skarlet, wherewithall they

are much delighted, so that while they stretch out themselves as it were

in sport upon that cloth, they cast out the stone of their head, but

instantly they sup it up againe, unlesse it be taken from them through

some secrete hole in the said cloth, whereby it falleth into a cesterne

or vessell of water, into the which the Toade dare not enter, by reason

of the coldnes of the water....



"This stone is that which in auncient time was called Batrachites, and

they attribute unto it a vertue besides the former, namely, for the

breaking of the stone in the bladder, and against the Falling sicknes.

And they further write that it is a discoverer of present poyson, for in

the presence of poyson it will change the colour. And this is the

substaunce of that which is written about this stone. Now for my part I

dare not conclude either with it, or against it, for many are directlie

for this stone ingendered in the braine or head of the Toade: on the

other side, some confesse such a stone by name and nature, but they make

doubt of the generation of it, as others have delivered; and therefore,

they beeing in sundry opinions, the hearing whereof might confound the

Reader, I will referre him for his satisfaction unto a Toade, which hee

may easily every day kill: For although when the Toade is dead, the

vertue thereof be lost, which consisted in the eye, or blew spot in the

middle, yet the substance remaineth, and, if the stone be found there in

substance, then is the question at an end; but, if it be not, then must

the generation of it be sought for in some other place."