50 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



the organs are proportionally very small — in the j)upa 

 state the organs much larger, though the respirations arc 

 very much less in number. 



Ancient Natural History gave wonderful accounts of 

 the existence of an animal under very unfavourable 

 circumstances. The poor toad, a very useful — l)Ut often 

 by ignorant people a much-abused and ill-treated creature — 

 was the subject of exi)eriment. That it is not a trivial 

 matter to which I draw your attention I may gather from 

 the fact that the occurrences to which I shall allude were 

 the subject of })apers read before the Royal x\cademv of 

 Sciences in Paris, which even in the yth decade of the 

 last century contained members who were by no means 

 mere sciolists. Before the members of that Academy, a 

 ])aper was read by a M. Guillard. He stated that in |)ulling 

 down a wall which was known to have existed lOO years, 

 a toad was found, without the smallest aperture being 

 discernilile by which it could have entered, and it had 

 been dead only a short time. Forty years before the date 

 of this statement, a M. Seigne before the meml)ers of th<^ 

 same Academy gave an account (more remarkable than 

 the foregoing) of a toad found in the centre of a solid 

 oak, and no place by which it could have entered could be 

 found. From the size of the tree he calculated that it 

 must have lived where it was found for 8o to lOO years. 

 Other similar instances are recorded, but I have 

 ventured to name these two, as they were gravely and by 

 men of some scientific knowledge at all events, brought 

 before the notice of those Frenchmen, who in their day 

 represented the science of the period. How the 

 assembled philosophers received the tales, history does 

 not tell: but one M. Herissaint determined to test the truth 

 or otherwise of these alleged facts by experiments, which 

 however conclusive, and putting an end to such nonsense, 

 I do not wish to justify. M. Herissaint, in February, 

 177 1, enclosed three toads in three cases of plaster, 



I 



