TOADS. 333 
evidently experienced some difficulty, and the only sign of suc- 
cess consisted of a barking noise, which it continues invariably 
to make at present on being touched. The Toad is in the pos- 
session of Mr. 8. Horner, the president of the Natural History 
Society, and continues in as lively a state as when found. On 
a minute examination, its mouth is found to be completely closed, 
and the barking noise it makes proceeds from its nostrils. The 
claws of its fore-feet are turned inwards, and its hind ones are of 
extraordinary length, and unlike the present English Toad. The 
Rey. R. Taylor, incumbent of St. Hilda’s Chuich, Hartlepool, 
who is an eminent local geologist, gives it as his opinion that the 
animal must be at least 6,000 years old. This wonderful Toad is 
to be placed in its primary habitation, and will be added to the 
collection in the Hartlepool Museum.”’ The following note was 
appended to the above extract: “It is stated in the Sunderland 
Herald that the Toad lately found by some quarrymen at Hartle- 
pool, and announced to be 6,000 (six thousand) years old, is not 
a myth.” 
The late Dean Buckland in 1825 commenced some experiments 
which proved that no Toad could exist, even for one year, ein- 
bedded in stone which is impervious to either water or air; and 
that this Batrachian could not live for two years in a compara- 
tively large cavity made in a stone of such a nature that it was _ 
permeable for water and possibly for air. It was found, however, 
that the Toads in those cells which, by chance, contained such 
small openings (owing to the cracked glass which covered the cell 
—or to the broken luting round the glass) that minute insects 
could enter, had at the end of the first year increased slightly 
in weight. Thus one Toad which when immured weighed 1,185 
grains was found to have increased to 1,265 grains. Another 
had increased from 988 grains to 1,116 grains. But all the other 
Toads had either died or decreased considerably in weight. These 
facts show the wonderful endurance of the Common Toad. 
A Toad, when young, may fall into a pit and take up its abode 
in some hole or cavity in a piece of rock, which it enters by means 
of a narrow opening or crevice. This is just the kind of retreat 
to suit the taste of such a Batrachian, and he spends his days and 
nights, when not sleeping, with his face towards the opening of his 
