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I am told by learned people that he is not a true toad, that his proper name is Ceratophrys ornata, and that he is a cannibal, feeding on harmless frogs and toads which he kills with his poison-fangs. There was a plentiful supply of these creatures at Espartillar, and the pupils, when they found an escuerzo, loved to tease him with a stick.
I just now called Ceratophrys ornata venomous, though its teeth are not formed to inject poison into the veins, like serpents' teeth. It is a singular creature, known as escuerzo in the vernacular, and though beautiful in colour, is in form hideous beyond description. The skin is of a rich brilliant green, with chocolate-coloured patches, oval in form, and symmetrically disposed.
The Argentine Republic is peculiar in possessing a venomous toad, equipped like a snake with regular poison-glands and fangs. He is known in the vernacular as escuerzo, and is rather a handsome creature, wearing a green black-striped coat.
When the escuerzo was beside himself with fury, the pupil would dip his stick into the oily residue of his pipe, and hold it out to the toad, who would fasten on to it like a mad creature, only to die in a few seconds of the nicotine. The only other venomous reptile was the Vibora de la Cruz, the "Viper with the Cross," much dreaded by the gauchos.
It was then like a vast lake to us, although the water was not more than about three feet deep, and at such times it was infested with the big venomous toad-like creature called escuerzo in the vernacular, which simply means toad, but naturalists have placed it in quite a different family of the batrachians and call it Ceratophrys ornata It is toad- like in form but more lumpish, with a bigger head; it is big as a man's fist, of a vivid green with black symmetrical markings on its back, and primrose-yellow beneath.
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