ome
church where there was a vast crowd; on going into a pew, she was
accosted by a strange clergyman, who, after expressing compassion for her
situation, told her that if she would make such an application of living
toads as is mentioned she would be well." Now is it likely that this
unknown gentleman should express so much tenderness for this single
sufferer, and not feel any for the many thousands that daily languish
under this terrible disorder? Would he not have made use of this
invaluable nostrum for his own emolument; or at least, by some means of
publication or other, have found a method of making it public for the
good of mankind? In short, this woman (as it appears to me), having set
up for a cancer-doctress, finds it expedient to amuse the country with
this dark and mysterious relation.

The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least appearance of any
gills; for want of which it is continually rising to the surface of the
water to take in fresh air. I opened a big-bellied one indeed, and found
it full of spawn. Not that this circumstance at all invalidates the
assertion that they are _larvae_, for the _larvae_ of insects are full of
eggs, which they exclude the instant they enter their last state. The
water-eft is continually climbing over the brims of the vessel, within
which we keep it in water, and wandering away; and people every summer
see numbers crawling out of the pools where they are hatched up the dry
banks. There are varieties of them, differing in colour; and some have
fins up their tail and back, and some have not.

LETTER XIX.

SELBORNE, _August 17th_, 1768

Dear Sir,--I have now, past dispute, made out three distinct species of
the willow-wrens (_motacillae trochili_) which constantly and invariably
use distinct notes. But at the same time I am obliged to confess that I
know nothing of your willow-lark. In my letter of April 18th, I had told
you peremptorily that I knew your willow-lark, but had not seen it then;
but when I came to procure it, it proved in all respects a very
_motacilla trochilus_, only that it is a size larger than the two other,
and the yellow-green of the whole upper part of the body is more vivid,
and the belly of a clearer white. I have specimens of the three sorts
now lying before me, and can discern that there are three gradations of
sizes, and that the least has black legs, and the other two
flesh-co