MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES. 



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the trees upon which it grows in this neighbourhood ere long. — J. W. Lukis, 

 Great Bedwijn, Wilts, October 8th., 1851. 



"A Toad in a Hole." — A few days since, a lady who resides at the Vicarage, 

 South Newington, related a circumstance to me, relative to a disputed point 

 in Natural History, which occurred on the road leading from that village to 

 Banbury; and which, at the time, I thought worth sending for insertion in 

 your interesting and useful publication. I now feel the more disposed to 

 forward it, in consequence of having read in "The Times," of 'Tuesday last, 

 an article extracted from the "Literary Gazette," with the ludicrous heading 

 I have copied above. The account there narrated, is of a Toad having been 

 discovered by some workmen, in digging a well at Blois, last June, in the 

 middle of a large flint, weighing about fourteen pounds, and lying about a 

 yard beneath the surface of the soil. The stone and the Toad, just as they 

 were, were sent to the Society of Sciences at Blois, where it is said to have 

 become the subject of curious attention; and it is also stated to have been 

 brought before the Academy of Sciences at Paris. Every circumstance mentioned 

 appears to confirm the supposition that the creature must have been enclosed 

 from the very formation of the flint; but M. Magendie suggested that it was 

 just possible that an attempt was being made to hoax the Academy, as it 

 might have been put in by the workmen after the stone was broken. But 

 for the objections to this, and the whole narrative, I will refer your readers 

 to the article itself, and proceed to give you an account of the circumstance 

 I have commenced with, respecting another Toad which was discovered in a 

 similar situation, where, undoubtedly, no trick was attempted or thought of. 

 The lady I have alluded to was walking with some more ladies on the road 

 I have mentioned, when a cart, loaded with stones from a neighbouring 

 stone-pit, passed them. It had no sooner done so, than a large round stone 

 rolled ofi^ the load, and on its falling on the hard ground, immediately split 

 in two parts; when, to the wonder of the party, a living Toad came out 

 of a hole in the middle of it. They called to the carter, who stopped his 

 horses, examined the reptile and his lodging, and after having joined with 

 the ladies in expressing astonishment at — "the thing being in the middle of 

 a great stone when there was no place for him to get in at!" — coolly enclosed 

 it again in its once subterranean resting-place, threw the stone and its inmate 

 on the top of his load, and without further reflection drove leisurely on. I 

 regret exceedingly I had not the good fortune to witness this event myself, 

 as I fully believed, from the statement made to me, (the truth of which I 

 can fully rely on,) that the reptile was perfectly enclosed in the stone. This 

 was of the soft reddish brown kind which spreads over a large portion of the 

 north of Oxfordshire, and is described by the Rev. W. D. Conybeare, as 

 ferruginous sandstone of the inferior oolite; and by Sowerby, as sandy or iron- 

 shot oolite. I may add here, that Mr. Conybeare was for a few years 

 clergyman of South Newington, which afforded him an excellent opportunity 



