IOO 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



were found dead. At the same time that Dr. Buck- 

 land enclosed these toads in stone he placed four 

 other toads in three holes cut on the north side of the 

 trunk of an apple-tree. These were carefully closed 

 with plugs of wood, so as to exclude access of insects, 

 and were apparently air-tight. Every one of the toads 

 thus pegged in was found dead and decayed at the 

 end of the first year. Dr. Buckland concludes from 

 the experiments generally that toads cannot live a 

 year totally excluded from atmospheric air ; and from 

 the experiments made in the larger cells in the oolite 

 that there is a probability that those animals cannot 

 survive two years entirely excluded from food. 



In Vol. III. " Magazine of Natural History," it is 

 related that a toad was placed upon a bed of flinty 

 gravel with full three feet of gravel over it, and with- 

 out any apparent means of obtaining food, and that 

 after remaining in that situation for three years to the ( 

 very day, it was removed from its dormitory alive, but 

 wasted and shrunk in some measure. It was then 

 put into a hole in the ground about six inches deep, 

 and shaded from the sun j in this state it lived seven 

 days, but it died on the eighth day after it was taken 

 out of the ground. 



At the same time that this toad was buried four 

 others were put alive under two flower-pots, two under 

 each pot ; these were also buried three feet below the 

 surface in a dry soil. But here a very different result 

 was met with, for after removing the earth and 

 turning up the flower-pots not a vestige could be 

 seen of the four toads put under three years before. 

 After searching the earth over which the pots cover- 

 ing the toads had whelmed, all that could be found 

 in the soil belonging to the animal kingdom were the 

 antennae, legs, and elytra of beetles. The only solu- 

 tion then presented as to the removal of the toad 

 carcasses, was that the larvre of the beetles or the 

 insects in a more perfect state had effected their 

 removal by devouring them. 



Our old author, Mr. Bell, says : " Upon the whole 

 it appears to me that whilst the many concurrent 

 assertions of credible persons, who declare themselves 

 to have been witnesses of the emancipation of im- 

 prisoned toads, forbids us hastily to refuse our assent 

 or at least to deny the possibility of such a circum- 

 stance, it must be confessed that we still want better 

 and more cautious evidence to authorize an implicit 

 belief in these asserted facts. The truth probably is 

 that a toad may have lain hid in the hollow of a tree 

 during perhaps a whole autumn and winter, and found 

 itself on the return of spring so far enclosed within 

 its hiding-place as_to be unable to escape. As this 

 animal requires but little respiration, and consequently 

 but little food to support life, especially when in a 

 state of entire inactivity, the smallest opening would 

 be sufficient to admit the requisite passage of air and 

 even the occasional ingress of small insects ; and 

 afterwards, when the tree was cut up, the toad may 

 have been found enclosed, and the opening may have 



escaped detection. To believe that a toad enclosed 

 within a mass of clay or other similar substance will 

 exist wholly without air or food for hundreds of years 

 and at length be liberated alive, and capable of crawling 

 on the breaking up of the matrix, now become a solid 

 rock, is certainly a demand upon credulity which few 

 would be ready to answer." The result of all this 

 seems then to be that though the toad cannot live in 

 trees and stones for the enormous time some people 

 seem to have asserted, yet they are capable of living 

 for some short time in very close quarters. 



The other British species of the toad is the natter- 

 jack (Bnfo calamita) which has been found to be 

 pretty abundant in some parts of England and the 

 south-west of Ireland, chiefly in the vicinity of the sea; 

 it much resembles the common toad, but is of a 

 yellowish-brown colour, clouded with dull olive, a 

 bright yellow line passing along the middle of the 

 back. The under parts are yellowish with black 

 spots ; the legs are marked with black bands. It has 

 a disagreeable smell. Its motion is more like walking 

 or running than the crawling of the common toad. 

 It is most probable that its reproduction and all the 

 stages of its development resemble those of the 

 common toad. It resorts only to the water for the 

 purpose of breeding. 



FERN VARIETIES. 



NO department of British Botany will repay our 

 labour of quiet investigation so well as the 

 division often called Pteridology, and no season of 

 the year is so favourable for this work as the 

 early spring months, because the roots may then be 

 removed without danger. We believe about 150 

 varieties or forms of the common hart's -tongue 

 fern have already been named, and probably an 

 equal number may still be discovered by patient 

 research. These forms when distinct, or in any way 

 remarkable, are most valuable, and often realize high 

 prices ; we know of one which was sold to a nursery- 

 man for £\o. Surely this is a fair inducement, apart 

 from the pleasure and delight afforded by a ramble 

 amid the dells and ravines of Old England. 



On this occasion we notice a few varieties of the 

 hart's-tongue {Scolopendrium vulgarc) only, and 

 merely expressing our willingness to aid any 

 collectors in naming any variety they meet with, if 

 a dried frond is sent through the Editor of Science- 

 Gossip. 



(a.) Is the type, or normal frond of the common 

 hart's-tongue fern {Scolopendrium vulgare, Sm.) 

 which is broadly-linear, entire, tapering off to a point 

 at the apex, cordate at the base. 



(b.) S. vulgare, bifidum. This is a very common 

 form, though it is seldom found with all the fronds 

 bifid. The frond is divided at the apex into two 



