Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill PORCH REPTILES Why do people dislike reptiles? Is the horror of all creeping things instinctive, or merely a reflex of popular expression on the subject? Is it because reptiles are cold?—but that shouldn't be a valid objection in warm countries, at least. Is it because of a certain sliminess, real or imagined? But fish are slimy, too, and nobody despises them. Some reptiles are dangerous, it is true, but so are lions, for instance, and parrots with sharp beaks, and little dogs that snap at your heels,—but they arouse no shudder of repulsion. Is the human aversion to the snake, for example, based wholly on the thought that the devil once assumed his form, and do we have a lingering notion that the tenant still hangs about? Do we loathe toads— some of us, I mean—because colored persons and small boys tell us if we handle them we'll get warts on our fingers? Darkeys assure us that the tree toad is poisonous, and that its bite will kill,—but is that folk-superstition, or has it any basis in science? I had often been hearing the tree toads in the trees near the porch, but without being able to catch a glimpse of one, as they are extremely shy creatures and begin to move about only when the dusk falls. They can be heard croaking about coming or going rain, but they stay close in all day. The tree toad's protective coloring is a help to further his privacy. The little thing moves so softly that its brown body fairly blends with the brown of the tree trunk, and the mottled shading of the bark is reflected in the colors of the little creature itself. But I was eager to see one, so I finally asked Mose, the gardener, if he couldn't find one for me. Mose'sjeyes opened wide at the request. "Why, Mistis! Whaffur you wan' a tree toad?" "I want to study it, — and I think it...