92 REPTILES OF DORSET. 



and observers I have as yet never come across one who 

 could assure me, without the possibility of a doubt, that he 

 had seen this occur. I need scarcely add that I have never 

 Avitnessed it myself, and I confess that I am still very sceptical on 

 the point. Another superstition I would refer to is the finding 

 of toads imbedded in solid blocks of wood or stone. This has also 

 been often very circumstantially testified to in print, and by eye- 

 witnesses (whose testimony on such a point can, however, hardly 

 be said to be quite above suspicion), such as that of quarrymen or 

 others who had something to look for in the way of reward, or 

 notoriety from the detail of the marvellous. Is^either in this case 

 has it ever been my lot to come across anyone who had ever seen a 

 toad dis-entombed from a piece of stone or rock. I have under- 

 stood that a considerable reward has more than once been offered 

 to quarrymen or others (who had asserted the occurrence of toads 

 in solid stone as not unfrequent) to produce at once the toad and 

 the portions of rock which encased it, but that in no case has the 

 reward ever been claimed ; in fact, I think it may be said that no 

 unimpeachable evidence has ever yet been offered to prove such an 

 occurrence. Other superstitions in connection with Reptiles 

 (notably toads) belong rather to "Folk-lore" than to K'atural 

 History, and I fancy that our past Vols, of the Field Club 

 Proceedings contain accounts of such from the able pens of 

 Mr. J. S. Udal and others, so I need not allude to them further here. 

 I would therefore only mention that out of the thirteen recorded 

 Dorset species of Eeptiles I find twelve in the parish of Bloxworth 

 alone. 



CLASS EEPTILIA. 

 ORDER *TESTUDINATA (Tortoises and Turtles), 



* I am told by our Secretary, Mr. Kicliardson, that in 1887 or 1888 a 

 specimen of Chdonia viridis, the green or edible Turtle, was found dead 

 in the West Bay. (See Proc. Dorset N. H. and A. F. Club x., p. 170.) 

 The shell of this is in our Museum, but it can hardly be placed in our 

 list of Dorset Reptiles, as it may have been one tliat died on board ship 

 and was thrown overboard c^i route from the tropics, or perhaps it may 

 have been washed over here after a natural death. 



