The Kentucky Gazette

Very few know or have observed the toad at his repast; it is performed with electric rapidity, and with more than telegramic precision, his tongue is doubled back upon itself, and is supplied with a glutinous secretion that makes the gullet as slick as oil. The moment the tongue comes in range of the little creature to be licked up, it shoots forth with unerring precision, and as quick as a streak of lightning the captive is within gastric department.

These little creatures, which are as innocent and harmless as it is possible for animated nature to be, have the very bitterest of enemies among bad boys and wicked and ignorant people; and every father and mother should teach their children to respect the life of a toad the same as a bird. While they are not as beautiful to the eye, they are quite as valuable in our gardens and flower beds, to destroy insects as birds are. There has been a war for extermination among school-boys, since we could first remember, and it is cruel and entirely wrong.

The metamorphosis which frogs and toads undergo is completely remarkable and beautiful for the lover of all nature to contemplate. In their tadpole state their respiration is carried by a pair of gills or aquatic lungs. In their adult state their gills are transposed into a pair of breathing lungs capable of breathing atmospheric air alone, and the spawn of frogs and toads is very distinguishable, also, the spawn of the former is found distributed through the whole mass of jelly, while that of the latter is seen arranged in two strings generally.