%l6 Ohfervathns on Living Animals 



alive. Ray* at firft doubted the truth of thefe relations j 

 but his doubts were foon removed by the undubitable tefli- 

 mony of eye-witnefles. Accounts of a fimilar kind may be 

 found in Francifci's Theatre of Various Curiojities, printed at 

 Nuremberg in 1671 \. The author there fpeaks of toads, 

 crabs, ferpents and fheil-nih found in ftones; but it is very- 

 evident that he confounds thefe with petrifactions. 



Lloyd, in the third letter at the end of his LithophjJaci'r 

 Brita?inici Ichnograpbia I, fays, he was informed by Dr. 

 Richardfon that he had found a living toad inclofed in a fo- 

 lid rock. Dr. Bradley § mentions a fact of the like kind, 

 having been wi.tn.efs to a toad being found in the trunk of a 

 large oak. We are told in the Hiftory of the Academy of 

 Sciences of Paris for the year 17 19, that a toad was found 

 inclofed in an elm as thick, as a man's body. As foon as- 

 the trunk was cleft the animal dropped out, and no opening 

 could be difcovered through which it had got in to the heart 

 of the wood. A fimilar circumftance is mentioned in the 

 fame work for 1731, viz. of a toad being found in an oak at 

 leaft eighty or a hundred years old || . 



Labat, in his Travels through Spain and Italy ^T, gives a 

 very minute defcription of a kind of ihell-fifli found in- 

 ftones fifhed up from the fea in the territories of Civita Vec- 

 chia, and which were eaten by the inhabitants. " While 

 walking," fays he,- "on the coaft of Bichiere, I had the 

 plcafure of feeing fKhed up fcveral fca dates (dattoli di mare) 

 which are produced and grow La certain ftones of a fome- 



* Synopfis Animal. Quadruped, p. 21. 



■J- Der luftigen Schau-Buhne vielerharul Curiofitaten 2ter Theile diircb 

 Erafmum FrancXci. Nuremberg, 1671. S. p. 1109. 



* Lond. i6yS.S, p. 107. 



§ A Philofophical Account of the Works of Nature. Lond. 1711. 4ta 

 p. 9 and 130. Seeaifa Acta erudrtorum. Lip. 171 1. p. 37a. 

 j| See aifo Acta eruditorum. Lip. Suppl. VTIi. 

 % Voyages en Efpagnc et en Italic Amft. 1731.8. vol. iv. p. 240. 



what 



