SOME FACTS AND FICTIONS OF ZOOLOGY. 105 



Regularly, year by year, and in company with the reports of the sea- 

 serpent's reappearance, we may read of the discoveries of toads and 

 frogs in situations and under circumstances suggestive of a singular 

 vitality on the part of the amphibians, of more than usual credulity 

 on the part of the hearers, or of a large share of inventive genius in 

 the narrators of such tales. The question possesses for every one a 

 certain degree of interest, evoked by the curious and strange features 

 presented on the face of the tales. And it may therefore not only 

 prove an interesting but also a useful study, if we endeavor to arrive 

 at some just and logical conceptions of these wonderful narrations. 



Instances of the discovery of toads and frogs in solid rocks need 

 not be specially given ; suffice it to say that these narratives are re- 

 peated year by year with little variation. A large block of stone or 

 face of rock is detached from its site, and a toad or frog is seen here- 

 after to be hopping about in its usual lively manner. The conclusion 

 to which the bystanders invariably come is, that the animal must have 

 been contained within the rock, and that it was liberated by the dis- 

 lodgment of the mass. Now, in many instances, cases of the appear- 

 ance of toads during quarrying-operations have been found, on close 

 examination, to present no evidence whatever that the appearance of 

 the animals was due to the dislodgment of the stones. A frog or toad 

 may be found hopping about among some recently formed debris, and 

 the animal is at once seized upon and reported as having emerged 

 from the rocks into the light of day. There is in such a case not the 

 slightest ground for supposing any such thing ; the animal may more 

 reasonably be presumed to have hopped into the debris from its ordi- 

 nary habitat. But, laying aside narratives of this kind, which lose 

 their plausibility unde.7 a very commonplace scrutiny, there still exist 

 cases, reported in an apparently oxact and truthful manner, in which 

 these animals have been alleged to appear from the inner crevices of 

 rocks after the removal of large masses of the formations. We shall 

 assume these latter tales to contain a plain, unvarnished statement of 

 what was observed, and deal with the evidence they present on this 

 footing. 



One or two notable examples of such verified tales are related by 

 Smellie, in his " Philosophy of Natural History." Thus, in the " Me- 

 moirs of the French Academy of Science " for 1719, a toad is described 

 as having been found in the heart of an elm-tree ; and another is stated 

 to have been found in the heart of an old oak-tree, in 1731, near Nantz. 

 The condition of the trees is not expressly stated, nor are we afforded 

 any information regarding the appearance of the toads particulars of 

 considerable importance in view of the suggestions and explanations 

 to be presently brought forward. Smellie himself, while inclined to 

 be skeptical in regard to the truth or exactness of many of the tales 

 told of the vitality of toads, yet regards the matter as affording food 

 for reflection, since he remarks : " But I mean not to persuade, for I 



