A toad is of a most cold temperament and bad constitution of nature, and it uses one certain herb wherewithal it preserves the sight, and also resists the poison of spiders, whereof I have heard this credible history related, from the mouth of a true honorable man, and one of the most charitable peers of England, namely, the good Earl of Bedford, and I was requested to set it down for truth, for it may be justified by many now alive which saw the same.

It fortuned as the said Earl travelled in Bedfordshire, near unto a market town called Owbourne, some of his company espied a toad fighting with a spider under a hedge in a bottom [ditch] by the highway-side, whereat they stood still, until the Earl, the Lord and Master, came also to behold the same. And there he saw how the spider still kept her standing, and the toad diverse times went back from the spider, and did eat a piece of an herb, which to his judgment was like a plaintain. At the last, the Earl having seen the toad do it often, and still return to the combat against the spider, he commanded one of his men to go and with his dagger to cut off that herb, which he performed and brought it away. Presently after, the toad returned to seek it, and not finding it according to her expectation, swelled and broke in pieces. For having received poison from the spider in the combat, nature taught her the virtue of that herb to expel and drive it out. But wanting the herb, the poison did instantly work and destroy her. And this (as I am informed) was oftentimes related by the Earl of Bedford himself upon sundry occasions, and therefore I am the bolder to insert it into this story.

The antipathy between a toad and a spider, and that they poisonously destroy each other, is very famous, and solemn stories have been written of their combats, wherein most commonly the victory is given unto the spider. Of what toads and spiders it is to be understood, would be considered. For the phalangium, and deadly spiders, are different from those we generally behold in England. However, the verity hereof, as also of many others, we cannot but desire, for hereby we might be surely provided of proper antidotes in cases which require them. But what we have observed herein, we cannot in reason conceal, who having in a glass included a toad with several spiders, we beheld the spiders without resistance to sit upon his head, and pass over all his body, which at last upon advantage he swallowed down, and that in few hours to the number of seven. And in the like manner will toads also serve bees, and are accounted an enemy unto their hives.