316 Incarcerated Toads, Natterjack. 



[If there is any incorrectness in the account, will our Dun- 

 dee correspondent be so kind as to correct it? In VI. 460., 

 VIII. 324., are accounts of two other instances of a bird's nest 

 being found within the wood of trees.] 



Amphibious Animals. — [Toads found incarcerated in 

 Stone and in Timber (VI. 458, 459.; VII. 519. 549, 550.): 

 one found incarcerated in Sandstone."] — Last summer, a live 

 toad was found incarcerated in solid sandstone, by the work- 

 men who were forming the railroad through Coventry Park. 

 These things, I am aware, not unfrequently occur (we often 

 read of them in the newspapers) ; but this is the first and only 

 instance that has ever come under my personal inspection. 

 I saw the toad alive the day after it was found. It is a good 

 example of the kind, the block, or rather rock, of sandstone 

 being solid, except the cavity where the toad lay. — W. T. Bree. 

 Dec. 19. 1835. 



Incarcerated Toads. — Opinions by both Brown and Jeffrey 

 are expressed in the Edinburgh Review, to the amount that, 

 " in quarries and in rocks, many [toads] have been discovered, 

 who [this word marks it as the animal, and not the rocks, 

 that is meant], they believe, existed before the flood. [Quite a 

 long period, at least, is intended.] In Chillingham Castle, the 

 seat of the Earl of Tankerville, one, within a period not long 

 past, was found contained in a marble mantel-piece. To this 

 we have to add, what has never before met the public eye, that, 

 some sixty years ago, a stone wall being about to be founded 

 in the neighbourhood of Bamborough, Northumberland, a 

 toad was procured, placed in a stone hollowed for the purpose, 

 and secured by mortar. After a period of thirty-eight years, 

 the wall was removed, and the stone examined, when the little 

 creature exhibited every proof of vitality." [British Mirror, 

 quoted in the Scotsman for April 2. 1836.) 



The Natterjack (Bufo Rubeta Flem. (VI. 185—189.457. 

 526.) occurs wild in Ireland. — I have lately got from Kerry 

 living specimens of the Irish toad, which I announced, at the 

 meeting of the British Association to have observed at Calna- 

 fersy, twelve miles from Killarney, in 1805. It is not the 

 common English toad, but the natterjack (jBufo iftibeta) of 

 Fleming, the mephitic toad of Shaw's Gen. Zoology, according 

 to Pennant, to whom Sir Joseph Banks appears to have given 

 the first intimation of its localities in England (it having been 

 found on Putney Common, and in Lincolnshire), and the de- 

 scription : the latter exactly accords with our little-known 

 native. It was found by me, thirty years ago, in the place 

 mentioned, where it was known to the peasantry as the black 

 frog ; and it was enquiring for them under this name that 



