1895-96-] Popular Delusions in Natural History. 183 



certain footprints, also Triassic, known as Chcir other ium, were 

 made by the same or similar creatures, lie actually produced 

 a sketch showing a frog of gigantic proportions coolly walking 

 along the sand and imprinting the said footprints on its way. 

 And the result was that the whole group of Labyrinthodontia 

 were afterwards proved to have long tails like newts or 

 salamanders, and so to be quite unlike frogs in shape, while as 

 to the footprints there seems to be a strong probability that 

 they are dinotherian and not amphibian in their origin, as was 

 formerly supposed. 



The mention of frogs now leads up to the last popular 

 delusion which I shall mention to-night, and it is certainly 

 one of the most remarkable, widely spread, as well as per- 

 sistent, in the whole set. I refer to the reported occurrence 

 of living frogs and toads enclosed in blocks of rock or stone, 

 or in the boulder clay many feet below the surface of the 

 ground, which is not much better. I remember being told 

 of such occurrences when I was a mere child, but experiments 

 were being made long before I was born to test their possi- 

 bility. How far the belief goes back into past time I do not 

 know — certainly it is far from extinct at the present moment. 



These tales generally originate with ignorant workmen, but 

 they are nevertheless often believed in by people of high 

 education. It is scarcely eight years ago since the late Miss 

 Amelia B. Edwards, the eminent Egyptologist, wrote to the 

 ' Times ' a letter concerning the finding of a live toad deep 

 down in the boulder clay at Greenock ; and I myself once 

 came very near giving offence to an accomplished writer by 

 venturing to doubt the occurrence of live frogs in the Old 

 Eed Sandstone of the north of Scotland. 



Such assertions are often made just about as positively and 

 emphatically as those about vipers swallowing their young, 

 or the appearance of the great sea serpent. Let us take a 

 couple of examples. 



In the nineteenth volume of the ' American Journal of 

 Science ' you will find a short notice of such an occurrence 

 by Mr David Thomas, evidently a believer in the facts he 

 related. In the year 1822, during the excavation for the 

 Erie Canal, some of the limestone taken out at Lockport 

 was being made into jambs when a live toad was found 



