is well saturated with it, it is nearly useless to
hope to remove the odor. A dog will carry the smell for several weeks.
For a long time it will be so strong as to make him an unfit denizen
of the house. Even swimming in deep water does not remove it. After
two weeks, although he may seem to be practically free from the odor,
a light rain will bring it all out again and make him nearly as
offensive as before.

Not as prompt in its action, but in the end nearly as effective, is
the protective device which the toad sometimes uses to his distinct
advantage. May I be pardoned a personal account of this particular
feature. It was my good fortune to be for a short time a student in a
class taught by Edward Drinker Cope, one of the most brilliant of our
American biologists. Prof. Cope mentioned in class the fact that the
Batrachians (the group to which the toad belongs) have in many cases
the power to emit from their skin a fluid which is sufficiently
nauseous to deter an animal from eating the creature that secretes it.
Upon such authority as this, I had no hesitancy whatever in repeating
Cope's statement. One morning I had a class in the field studying the
ground ivy, whose dainty blue flowers were lifting themselves out of
the dewy grass. While we were thus engaged, a toad joined the circle.
He came out of his dewy retreat clean and fresh from his morning bath.
I took him in my hands, and made him the subject of an immediate
lesson. I showed to my pupils his eyes and his interesting method of
handling them, his tongue and its strange insertion; showed them how
to look into his mouth and look up his ears to his ear drums, and
pointed out many other interesting facts. Then I told them how Cope
had said that the toad had power to emit from its skin a fluid so
nauseous that many an animal hesitates to eat it. This is the first
peculiarity I had mentioned which I had not myself observed, and a
scientific qualm came over my conscience. Why had I never verified
this statement which I had so frequently repeated? On the impulse of
the moment, with the bright, clean skin of the creature fresh from the
dewy grass, making it less than usually repulsive, I ran my tongue up
its back only to find that it had no taste whatever. I was of course
surprised, but I was not foolish enough to deny, as the result of one
observation, the statement of a good scientist. The observation,
moreover, was one which I naturally did not care to repeat wit