COMMON TOAD. 121 
The reproduction of the Toad is in all essential points 
similar to that of the Frog. The ova are ina similar man- 
ner impregnated during their passage, and their immersion 
in water is equally necessary for the developement of the 
embryo. But instead of being expelled in a mass, they 
are arranged in a double series, placed alternately, and 
perfectly regular. The jelly-lhke mass in which the em- 
bryos are enveloped, forms a continuous line about the 
eighth or sixth of an inch in thickness, and extending to 
the length of three or four feet. The ova are deposited 
in the spring, about a fortnight later than those of the 
Frog, and it is not until the approach of autumn that the 
young ones, having cast off their Tadpole form, come to 
seek their food on the land. The Tadpole is smaller and 
blacker in all the stages of its growth than that of the 
Frog; but there are no other peculiarities which are at 
all popularly interesting. 
The stories of Toads having been found in the very sub- 
stance of the wood of a tree, and in the midst of a solid and 
hard rock, are too numerous, and too generally asserted and 
believed, to be passed over here, although I have to regret 
that, after many and urgent inquiries, and the examination 
of several asserted cases of that kind, I am unable to throw 
any light upon this doubtful and mysterious question. 
Some years since I had a Toad sent me by a person of the 
highest credit, with the assurance that it had been taken 
alive out of a mass of indurated clay, of great depth, and 
that it had died immediately after being exposed to the 
air. But this case, like most, if not all, others of the 
same kind, is liable to the objection that the Toad most 
probably fell into the hollow where the men were at work, 
and was taken up by them in ignorance of the mode in 
which it had come there. Numerous experiments haye 
