EXISTENCE OF TOADS, 187 



cease entirely, and the animals may be prevented from reviving for a long 

 time, without their vitality being permanently destroyed, if they be surrounded 

 by an atmosphere sufficiently cold. Serpents and Frogs have been kept for 

 three years in an ice-house, and have completely revived at the end of that 

 period. 



Smellie, who was half-inclined to believe the rare phenomenon, says, '^Man 

 abortive attempts have been made to account for an animal's growing ani> 

 living very long in situations without the possibility of receiving nourishment or 

 air, especially as, like all other animals, when put into an exhausted receiver, 

 the Toad soon loses its existence. Upon this subject I shall only hazard 

 two observations. The Toad, it is well known, when kept in a damp place, 

 can live several months without food of any kind; though in its natural state 

 of liberty, it devours voraciously spiders, maggots^ ants, and other insects. 

 Here we have an instance, and there are many, of an animal whose con- 

 stitution is so framed by nature, that it can exist several months without 

 receiving any portion of food. According to our ideas of the necessity of 

 frequent supplies of nourishment^ it is nearly as difficult for us to conceive an 

 abstinence of four or six months as one of as many years^ or even centuries. 

 The one fact, therefore, may be as readily admitted as the other. The 

 same remark is equally applicable to the regular respiration of air. The 

 Toad, and many other animals, from some peculiarity in their constitution, 

 can live very long in a torpid state, without seeming to respire, and yet 

 their principle of life is not entirely extinguished; hence the Toad may, and 

 actually does, live many years in situations which exclude a free intercourse 

 with the external air. Besides, almost all the above, and similar facts, must, 

 from their nature, have been discovered by common labourers, who are totally 

 unqualified for examining every circumstance with the discerning eye of a 

 philosopher. In rocks there are many chinks, as well as fissures, both horizontal 

 and perpendicular, and in old trees nothing is more frequent than holes and 

 vacuities of diffi3rent dimensions. Through these fissures and vacuities the eo;ss 

 of Toads may accidentally be conveyed by water, the penetration of which, few 

 substances are capable of resisting. After the eggs are hatched, the animals 

 may receive moisture and small portions of air through the crevices of rocks, 

 or the channels of aged trees. But I mean not to persuade, for I cannot 

 satisfy myself." Upon which it is remarked by another writer, '^'It is allowed 

 to be difficult to assign limits to suspended animation, but it is very improbable 

 that where it is probable that nature has made a provision for the ordinary 

 period of hybernation, the animal should continue to exist for many years 

 after the supply must have become exhausted. The theory of the conveyance 

 of eggs by water is very feeble, and its extreme improbability will be manifest 

 to those who will consider for a moment the mode of reproduction and the 

 metamorphoses which the creature undergoes." 



Dr. Buckland admits it to be true that reptiles occur in cavities of stone, 

 and at the depth of many feet in soil and earth, but says, "The evidence 



