Toads.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4350, 9 December 1882, Page 2

Toads.

In most districts of Great Britain toads are moderately numerous, more numerous, indeed, than might be imagined, for they are not animals that court publicity. In the face of this it is rather surprising, says the Globe, to hear that toadß are now being imported into this country from Austria. They are packed into wooden boxes filled with moss, and. on arrival fetch as much as £3 to £4 per hundred. Toads have long been an article of commerce here; in most well ordered gardens the visitor will occasionally be startled by a quaint apparition on the pathway puffing like an asthmatic old gentleman, and the suburban market gardeners and nurserymen very frequently have them in their, frames and greenhouses and about their grounds. But until rpcently our horticulturists wei'e perfectly satisfied with the exer» tions of the native toad in ridding them of slugs, grubs, and noxious in* sects. It is possible that the Austrian toad may be larger and more voracious than ours, and this may explain the fact of its importation. At present it does not seem to have put in an appearance at Covent Garden, where a stock of toads and green frogs is usually kept. At any rate the new visitant, if only as useful as the native animal, deserves a hearty welcome as a cheap and useful article of the gardener, for not only does the toad live to an extremely old age. but has the unusual merit of finding its own provender and lodging. And beyond this it has much more good nature in it than its forbidding exterior would seem to indicate, and has frequently become so tame as to come at a call or even the sound of a whistle. And when dead its usefulness does not cease, for naturalists before now have happened to dissect. Altogether it is evident St. Patrick made a slight oversight when he banished the toad from the Green Isle in company with. the "sar* pints 1' and other hurtful creatures.