92 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



day every six weeks. On these days they were 

 tempted from their hiding place, and continued 

 to skip about and chirp till the following morn- 

 ing, when they again disappeared in consequence 

 of the returning cold. This fact, which he was 

 told by an ingenious friend, shews that in crickets 

 at least torpidity depends on circumstances ; and 

 perhaps other sleeping animals, he says, have 

 the same accommodating faculties. 



Mrs. P. amused us with some very extraor- 

 dinary accounts of toads that have been found 

 in the stems of old trees, so that the wood must 

 have grown round them; and even in cavities of 

 stones without the smallest crack or aperture for 

 any communication with the air. My uncle told 

 her that an experiment had not long ago been 

 tried at Paris on that curious subject : a living 

 toad was inclosed in plaster, and at the end of 

 six months it was alive and strong ; but some one 

 having suggested that plaster of Paris when dry 

 is more or less porous, the same experiment has 

 been repeated with the addition of a coat of var- 

 nish to prevent the admission of air. 



Before we separated, my uncle promised to 

 procure for me if possible a torpid dormouse. 



\2th. You must allow, mamma, that my 

 journal never detains you very long on any one 

 subject: from polar bears and frozen limbs we 

 must now skip to tobacco plantations and the 



