Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/462

454 toad has been a great avouritefavourite [sic] with me, though, perhaps, considering the rude handling to which it was continually subjected, the feeling was hardly reciprocated on the part of the reptile.

En passant, let me speak in the highest terms of the benefit conferred on children by letting them run about as they will in a rough and ready kind of garden, where they may work their own sweet wills, dig, plant, sow, build, and play, just as they like, without being subjected to the annoyance of being confined to the gravel, and forbidden under severe penalties to place a foot on the beds. It is an education in itself to them, this wild freedom. They learn a thousand things that books will never teach them; the use of their limbs, the use of their eyes, readiness of resource, and quick appreciation. They are sure to realise in vivid action every event of which they hear or read, and thus indelibly fix their knowledge on their childish memory.

For my own part, I know that there was not an event in Robinson Crusoe, the Swiss Family Robinson, Persian Fables, or Arabian Nights, that we did not act over and over again; while the histories of England, Greece, and Rome were delineated with equal force.

Not only were we wrecked on desert islands—not only did we rescue Men Fridays (darkening our faces with black-lead, in order to represent that suave savage in character)—not only did we build “falcons’ nests” in the apple tree, and make rope-ladders out of clothes lines—not only, in fine, did we reduce to practice any practicable event in our favourite books, and “make believe” fervently in all impracticable cases, but we pursued the same system with severer studies, and acted in turn every historical person of whom we read, though the originals might have found some difficulty in recognizing their representatives, or the localities in which the particular adventure occurred. For us, however, the result was perfectly satisfactory. If we pushed each other out of the loft window, the Tarpeian rock was sufficiently indicated; and if the representative of the criminal happened to hurt himself by the fall, it only made things look more real. And so, whether we gained our kingdoms by seeing flights of vultures, killed our brothers for jumping over the wall, got killed ourselves by an arrow in the eye at an imaginary Hastings, or one through the heart in an equally imaginary New Forest, the rocking-horse being of great service in the latter catastrophe, we certainly contrived to impress on our minds a tolerably vivid idea of the circumstances.

Children thus learn at the earliest years to distinguish one plant from another, to know a flower from a weed, and to learn something of their various properties; while, with regard to the animal kingdom, they gain a fund of practical experience that is sure to be valuable in after life.

It is no small matter for them to get rid of a fear, to distinguish between the harmless and hurtful beings, and by watching their interesting habits, to feel a sympathy with their fellow creatures, and to appreciate too keenly the infinite value of life to kill any living thing without just cause. We were never afraid of black beetles, daddy long-legs, or of any of the insect tribe, except the few that wore stings; while the frogs and toads were our special pets, lived in magnificent edifices made of bricks and flowerpots, and had each its own name. Long before we read about them in books, we knew all about their absorption of water through the skin, their sudden cry of fear when alarmed, the equally sudden change of colour, and the curious fact that a frog which lived in a dark hole was always brown, and one that lived in the open air was yellow; while, as to the venomous nature of the toads, as energetically detailed by our nursery maids, we treated the notion with supreme contempt, and handled a toad as easily as if it had been a ball. I am sure that many persons,—young ladies especially,—who cannot rid themselves of real terrors at the sight of many a harmless and useful creature, would have been much happier if their early lives had been spent in a garden such as has been described.

Having always felt an interest in these ungainly but truly useful batrachians, I begged from a friend a fine pair of toads that had just been sent from Jersey, and placed them in a glass fern-case.

Their first proceeding was to establish hiding-places, each choosing its own corner for that purpose. The method in which a toad ensconces itself is rather curious. Supposing, for example, that it wishes to burrow into the base of a small mound, it begins by finding some small spot where the earth is tolerably; loose it plants the extremity of the back against the mound, wriggles about in a position that reminds the observer of the green crab shovelling itself under the sand, and pushes the earth from beneath it with the hind feet, passing it forwards under the body, where it is taken up by the fore feet and put out of the way. Inadequate as the means may seem, the soft, skinny feet of the toad being apparently the worst spades that could well be devised, the creature will sink itself below the ground in a wonderfully short space of time. It is remarkable that a toad never enters its hole except by backing into it—at least I have never seen one do so, whether it be at liberty or in confinement.

Having fairly established themselves, they looked out for food, although, with all of their kin, they were capable of sustaining a very prolonged fast without any apparent inconvenience. As at that time I was living in the very heart of London, it was not easy to procure the proper kind of food for the toads, who feed wholly upon living creatures, and will touch nothing that does not move. However, I contrived to bring home a miscellaneous collection in several boxes, and tried experiments with them.

They would eat earthworms, provided that they were clean and lively, so as to writhe about in that manner which a toad cannot resist. They were captured after the usual custom, namely, by a sudden “flick” of the curious tongue, which is so rapidly moved that, with the most careful attention, the eye can only distinguish a pink streak suddenly appear and as suddenly vanish.