162 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



brated Bruguire, deceived in like manner by using 

 only his eyesight, adopts the same idea, and places* 

 this supposed new genus close to that of Pholas, to 

 some species of which it certainly bears no small 

 resemblance. 



(101.) Perhaps, the most inveterate of all these 

 sorts of prejudice is that which induces people to 

 believe that frogs and toads can live for centuries in 

 blocks of marble, impervious to air and of course 

 to food. We are so repeatedly assured of this fact 

 by writers in newspapers and periodicals, wherein 

 all the circumstances, with names and dates, are 

 given, that nothing but an actual series of experi- 

 ments could demonstrate the truth or falsehood of 

 such an alleged departure from the known laws of 

 nature. Such experiments have accordingly been 

 made, and the results have been just what might 

 have been expected by any one accustomed to 

 inductive and analogical reasoning. Yet, had not 

 the trials here alluded to been made, it might have 

 occurred to us as a singular fact, that out of so 

 many recorded instances of toads being found in 

 stones, no specimen of the broken ?iidus, and of 

 the antediluvian reptile alleged to have been within, 

 has never been submitted to the inspection of the 

 scientific. Nothing would be more easy than to 

 collect the fragments of the one, and preserve the 

 other in a bottle of spirits. We hope, therefore, 

 that the first of our readers, who is within a short 

 distance of such a discovery, will take this hint, 

 and, by sending us the toad and the stone, silence 



* Ency. Meth. pi. 170. 



