TOADS AND FROGS 



course not even a toad could live many hours 

 entombed in solid rock without air, food, or 

 light, let alone the thousands of years that it is 

 sometimes claimed it must have been buried. 

 The explanation is quite simple. What happens 

 is that a toad in search of a good home finds a 

 crack leading into the rock, which being damp 

 and cool suits him exactly, so therein he makes 

 himself at home, living very happily until a 

 time comes when the stone is to be quarried 

 away. The quarryman having attacked it the 

 rock comes tumbling down, when among the 

 bits some one chances to espy the toad. No- 

 body saw the crack, all see the toad, which was 

 entombed in the solid rock, or at least that is 

 what they say, and so a marvellous tale is told of 

 how the creature must have lived there without 

 air, food, or water for hundreds if not thousands 

 of years ! It may be taken as a fact that, how- 

 ever much the people who tell the stories believe 

 them, they cannot be true, as it is a proved fact 

 that a toad must have a certain amount of 

 air, to say nothing of food, to keep it alive. 



I have already mentioned that the toad likes 

 his den to be cool and damp. A dry skin is a 

 misery to him, he cannot endure a hot sun on 

 his back; shade and moisture are essential to 



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