or, excited the
curiosity of every visitant; and even ladies so far conquered their
natural horror and disgust as to request to see it fed. It seemed
particularly fond of flesh maggots, which were kept for it in bran.

9. When these were laid upon a table, it would follow them, and, at a
certain distance, would fix its eyes and remain motionless for a little
while, as if preparing for the stroke, which was always instantaneous.

10. It threw out its tongue to a great distance, when the insect stuck
by the glutinous matter to its lip, and was swallowed with inconceivable
quickness.

11. After living under the protection of its benefactor upwards of
thirty-six years, it was one day attacked by a tame raven, which wounded
it so severely that it died shortly afterward.

12. The erroneous opinion of toads containing and ejecting poison has
caused many cruelties to be exercised upon this harmless, and
undoubtedly useful tribe. Toads have been inhumanly treated, merely
because they are ugly; and frogs have been abused, because they are like
them.

13. But, we are to observe, that our ideas of beauty and deformity, of
which some arise from natural antipathies implanted in us for wise and
good purposes, and others from custom and caprice, are of a relative
nature, and peculiar to ourselves.

14. None of these relative distinctions, of great and small, beautiful
or ugly, exist in the all-comprising view of the Creator of the
universe: in his eyes, the toad is as pleasing an object as the
canary-bird, or the bulfinch.

LESSON XXIII.

_Maida, the Scotch Greyhound._--Altered from BINGLEY.

[Illustration]

1. A hound is a dog with long, smooth, hanging ears, and long limbs,
that enable him to run very swiftly. The greyhound is not so called on
account of his color, but from a word which denotes his Grecian origin.

2. The Scotch greyhound is a larger and more powerful animal than the
common greyhound; and its hair, instead of being sleek and smooth, is
long, stiff and bristly. It can endure great fatigue.

3. It was this dog that the Highland chieftains, in Scotland, used in
former times, in their grand hunting-parties.

4. Sir Walter Scott had a very fine dog of this kind, which was given to
him by his friend Macdonnel of Glengarry, the chief of one of the
Highland clans. His name was Maida.

5. He was one of the finest dogs of the kind ever seen in Scotland, not
only on account of his beauty and dignified