THE FROG A TOAD.

Oamaru Mail, Volume III, Issue 618, 26 April 1878, Page 2

THE FROG A TOAD.

The frog that'was found in a piece of coal in Messrs. Galbraith and Co. 's yards a short while a<<o, turns out to be a toad. At least, so those people say, who are learned in such matters. It appears that one of the points of distinction between the two animals is that the frog is wobfooted and the toad is iiofc. To whatever species it the honour of belonging, it is a wonderful little creature. It is now the guest of Mr. Coggins ; and it spends its time in that gentleman's front shop, ensconced in a glass globe containing a little herbage, for the purpose of giving it a change of diet and making it snug. It gliuioea knowingly at its visitors, and appears to view them with the same curiosity that filled the minds of the Lilliputians when they first beheld Gulliver or, the mind of Gulliver, when he nrst encountered the Brc.bdignagians. It looks decidedly sickly, and appears to be pining for the Cimmerian darkness of the coal pit in which for ages it dwelt, and lived upon carbon, that is, if it depended upon anything at all outside of itself for existence. As is the case with the lower

orders of humanity, civilisation will evidently sooner or later be the death of it. Mr. Coggins informs us that, before it wastes away so that there will be nothing but a green patch to indicate that it ever existed, he will administer a dose of something that will put it out of its misery ; but this will not bo necessary until everybody has been afforded an opportunity of seeing it, provided those desirous of doing so do not procrastinate. It is well worth seeing, if only for the sake of saving that one has looked upon the only living relic, so far as we know, of the distant past When gazing on the panting, frail-looking little creature, one can scarcely realise the probability that it has outlived great Empires by thousands of years ; that, perched on some eminence, it may have witnessed the extraordinary convulsions of Nature, to the agency of which we owe our coal-fields ; and that, whilst nestling on a tree, gazing on the queer world that geologists tell us existed at the probable time of the little animal's former liberty, it was either gradually or suddenly swallowed, and lived in its prison during the slow process of the transformation of the tree into ccal. vv liac a taie ic couitl unfold if it coukl only speak so that we could understand it. It might be able to upset all our accepted theories concerning the birth and growth

of our world. It may have rubbed shoulders witli some of Mr. Darwin's original men ; or. who knows but that it was deprived of the pleasure of bringing into the world other little toads that would, stage by stage, have reached to high position.-, amongst the human species, through the gobbling up of the tr<-o upon which it happened to be taking its breakfast. It is evident that the color (green) was a known and approved color in ages gone by, because the toad is as green as an emerald, and quite green enough to enlist the sympathies oi' any true son of Erin's Isle. The foregoing are the few thoughts that were imparted to us while on a visit to one of the most interesting little wonders we have ever seen, or even heard of. Wo ought to state that the little creature is to be preserved in spirits after demise.