gives me great satisfaction to find that you pursue these studies still
with such vigour, and are in such forwardness with regard to
reptiles and fishes.

The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with, so well as I
could wish, with regard to their natural history. There is a degree of
dubiousness and obscurity attending the propagation of this class of
animals, sometimes analogous to that of the cryptogamia in the
sexual system of plants: and the case is the same as regards some
of the fishes: as the eel, etc.

The method in which toads procreate and bring forth seems to me
very much in the dark. Some authors say that they are viviparous:
and yet Ray classes them among his oviparous animals; and is
silent with regard to the manner of their bringing forth. Perhaps
they may be ' eso men ootokoi, exo de dzootokoi,(in Greek), as is
known to be the case with the viper.

The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it; for
Swammerdam proves that the male has no penis intrans) is
notorious to everybody: because we see them sticking upon each
other's backs for a month together in spring: and yet I never saw, or
read, of toads being observed in the same situation. It is strange
that the matter with regard to the venom of toads has not yet been
settled. That they are not noxious to some animals is plain: for
ducks, buzzards, owls, stone curlews, and snakes, eat them, to my
knowledge, with impunity. And I well remember the time, but was
not eye-witness to the fact (though numbers of persons were),
when a quack, at this village, ate a toad to make the country people
stare; afterwards he drank oil.