A TOAD TRADITION VERIFIED.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 18, 20 July 1907, Page 15

A TOAD TRADITION VERIFIED.

Every now arid then learned nssuraueo receives a salutary shock oy tho discovery that gome much-ridiculed popular "fable" or "superstition" is after all a fcioutifio fact. Ono of tho most ancient of fishing yarns which has helped to put piscatorial Btorics in general undor reproach i 8 that of tho bitter enmity Buppoaod to exist between frogs and toads on tho ono hand and carp on the othnr. * Long beforn tin? 1 days of Izaalc Walton, [rays the Daily ' Express) gruosome tales woro told of conflicts botween those creatures, and tho "Compleat Angler" himself was deridftd for ctating that, frogc attack carp by "dtickinp fast to their hcacb." Tho m- , count given in Nature by Profcrsor Adrian J. Brown, of Birmingham University, of an attack by a toati on a golden carp in . (ill the more interesting ninco it prove* the truth of what lias hitherto beon regarded ],y most pcopln af* a "fiohy" &tory. 110 »ay 3: — "On 29th Tila'-rh my cob directad my attention to a large golden carp lying in shallow walor ndar tho edgo of a p6nd in my garden with a frog or toad apparently resting on its head. The fish appeared to bo very eluggisn, ?.nd mado no attornpt to cecapc from a landing not with v,'h'Qh ho wa3 caiily brought to nhoro. On oxaminalion it wos found that tho head of tho fish wa» hold tightly by a mediiim-sizod commc-ii toad, whir'i \m<\ obtained a very firm grasp by ineerting its forc-liml)" aa fa: 1 as tho i-econd, or olbow, joint into c tho ecckctn of llio "yoi «if tho tinrcTlunaie fish. Tho ghoulishlonkii:g toad t3y on top of (ho fish's hood facing its tail, and wit'n itn hind lot;'> hanging in front of tho -n>h # 3 mouth. At fir3fc the opnearanre o£ tbe, eye 3of tho fish Ind itio to think they had been ruplurod, but clo e sr c~amitiation showed Ihoy wcro mero'y displaoed slikl iiirnad part-niiy vounrt owing to tho nriVßuru pxertod by Ihti inlnision of the toa'.l's liml:3 bctv/oen ihe eyes ami tlscir On rarftfully withdrawing tho toad'n fore-limba, which woro itj^orted to tho extent of nbout ono inch within the cyc-?cckof', tlio oyi'3 returned to their normal portion apparently uninjured, but during t!i°ir displacomont tlio itah nuisi, liavo been quito blind. No effort of tho fi*h' could have rid 1 iteelf of the toad after It had oneo ohlainatl tho remarkably firm gra-'p which has boon described, nml it appuara very probablo that tho fish would have died in a uhort time"