We need not say that the frog is more
palatable, although we do not think
that in England we have the small green
kind of the southern French swamps
and the sedgy lakelets of Calabria
After all, these foreigners are only’ tc
our domestic friends as the oysters o|
Ostend or Marenness to the coarser ol
the British qualities. Toads are not tc
be tackled with impunity; the toad, likt
the skunk, is overcharged with venom
and he keeps the troops of his natural
enemies at bay by the instinctive knowl
edge that he is an animated poison cata
pult. Nor is tho snake often eaten in
England. Yet we dare to say that snake
meat might be preferable to starvation,
or possibly to the stone breaking yard
of a workhouse. We know at least thai
the iguana or great tree lizard of the
tropics—ami he claims very close kin
dred with the deadly serpents—is habit
ually served at the most sumptuous
tables.
As Tom Cringle says, when break
fasting off iguana among the Cuban*
pirates, he should never have distin
guished the creature from chicken had
it not been that the bones are a trifle
big. Messrs. Edwards and Bates and
Wallace inform us that the canoe mer.
on the upper tributaries of the Amazon
can always make themselves happy with
alligator, although they only have re
course to it as a last resort. Their chief
objection is that the meat tastes musky.
Even hardened alligator eaters, howeVer.
