A lizard of the genus Phrynosoma.
1806. A venerable Philosopher [Thomas Jefferson] sitting in the middle of an immense Map, marked with vast praires, huge rivers, and mountains of salt: surrounded by piles of Mammoth bones, cockle-shells, stuffed squirrel-skins, and horned toads.… Chorus—This is the Man, with his toads’ horns good store.—Mass. Spy, July 16.
1807. Expeditions for the purpose of picking up singular stones, shells, horned frogs, and wood chucks, in a country which we shall never settle.—The Repertory, Boston, Aug. 4.
*** The preceding quotations ridicule the Louisiana purchase, and Mr. Jefferson’s somewhat inflated description of the territory thus acquired. See also Appendix, XXVI. and XXVII.
1888. The moss, though very comfortable, often held in its meshes a horned toad, a harmless little mottled creature that had two tiny horns, which it turned from side to side in the gravest, most knowing sort of way.—Mrs. Custer, ‘Tenting on the Plains,’ p. 122.
