1903 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 105 



In due time I received an acknowledgement from 0. S. Alston, stating : "Your note of 21st 

 January last, addressed to Mr. J. Carfrae Alston, has been handed to me for perusal and rejily, 

 as Mr. Carfrae Alston is (|uite unaware of the Muifdt connection. Mr. J. Carfrae Alston is a 

 son of the late Thomas Alston, the second son of the late Bailie John Alston, of Rosemount. 

 who died some fifty or rsixty years ago. He is a very busy man, who takes a deep and lively 

 interest in the pliilanthropic work of our great city, and is held in much estimation by his 

 fellow citizens. 



" I have a faint recollection of your people, who were in business on the High Street of 

 Glasgow. Also of your uncle, Dr. William Moffat, whose surgery was on the same street, and 

 who I was told had held the post of Surgeon-Major in the Army undei the Duke of Wellington, 

 was taken prisoner by the French, but afterwards made his escape from a prison in Paris by 

 getting into and passing through a common sewer into the River Seine and reaching the bands 

 of his friends after many difficulties." Mr. C. S.Alston further adds: "I may state that I 

 am the son of a half-brother of Bailie Alston, and lately retired from the Governorship of 

 Glasgow Prison, after a service of forty-four years between the County of Lanark and the 

 Government." 



This Bailie Alston must have been a man of taste, with a strong inclination towards natural 

 history subjects, as well as being of a philanthropic turn of mind. Every time I visited Rose- 

 mount with my mother or my eldest sister, I seem to have received a fresh impression of some- 

 thing that I saw there that has endured to the present. An extensive garden, planned to show 

 to the best advantage the gardener's art ; much shrubbery and many winding paths, in turning 

 which you obtained a different view of the brightly colored flowers in the many beds of 

 various forms. A greenhouse against the side of the kitchen ; and behind the receding shelves 

 upon which the flower-pots stood was an aviary, in which was a diversity of native singing- 

 birds, bright and lively — a source of unfailing wonder and delight to me. A high stone wall 

 enclosed the premises, as was the fashion of the times, with ornamental gates in front. In the 

 wall at the back of the garden was a door, which was used as a short cut in that direction. <')ver 

 the pathway leading to this door a whale's jaw had been set into the ground, and formed an 

 arch under which one had to pass when going out of that door ; and I remember the awe with 

 which I surveyed that arch, and wondered at the hugeness of the animal that had owned it. 



But that which has retained its interest for me through all these years was an experience 

 which the Bailie was engaged in carrying out with a living toad. He had no doubt read, as 

 probably all of us have done many times since, of toads having been found alive in solid rocks, 

 living trees or great depths of soil ; where, if we are to believe the tales, they must have 

 remained in a dormant condition for long periods of time, some of them counted by centuries, 

 without light or food. And he seemed to have undertaken the task of proving to some extent, 

 the powers of endurance possessed by a toad for a long period of successful hybernation ; so as 

 to test to that extent the reliability or otherwise of these newspaper stories, exhibiting a 

 decidedly practical turn of mind, combined with true scientific exactness. What appeared to 

 be a full grown toad had been procured, placed in a flower pot half filled with soil. The 

 pot covered with a piece of slate, then all buried a good depth in the ground, to be taken up 

 and examined once a year, and repeated for ten years if the toad survived. 



I was fortunately, but quite accidentally, present at the third annual opening and exposure 

 of that toad to view — a boy o{ eight or nine years at the time. A company of interested 

 persons had been invited to be present on the occasion. A wide circle was formed round 

 the locality, which was in a well kept lawn. The gardener, who knew the spot, unearthed the 

 pot, lifted it out, took off the slate and exposed the toad. It was in but not under the soil, 

 appeared to be sound asleep and shewed no indication of wasting from want of food. After a 

 little while of exposure it gave signs of life, straightened its front legs, opened its eyes, and 



