82 SEVEN-YEAR SLEEPEES 



from Mr. Wollaston a basketful of Madeira snails (of 

 twenty or thirty different kinds), three-fourths of which 

 proved to be alive, after several months' confinement, 

 including a sea voyage. Mr. Wollaston has himself 

 recorded the fact that specimens of two Madeira snails 

 survived a fast and imprisonment in pill-boxes of two years 

 and a half duration, and that large numbers of a small 

 species, brought to England at the same time, were all 

 living after being inclosed in a dry bag for a year and a 

 half.' 



Whether the snails themselves liked their long depri- 

 vation of food and moisture we are not informed ; their 

 personal tastes and inclinations were very little consulted 

 in the matter ; but as they and their ancestors for many 

 generations must have been accustomed to similar long 

 fasts during tropical droughts, in all likelihood they did not 

 much mind it. 



The real question, then, about the historical toad-in-a- 

 hole narrows itself down in the end merely to this how 

 long is it credible that a cold-blooded creature might sus- 

 tain life in a torpid or hibernating condition, without food, 

 and with a very small quantity of fresh air, supplied (let 

 us say) from time to time through an almost imperceptible 

 fissure ? It is well known that reptiles and amphibians 

 are particularly tenacious of life, and that some turtles in 

 particular will live for months, or even for years, without 

 tasting food. The common Greek tortoise, hawked on 

 barrows about the streets of London and bought by a con- 

 fiding British public under the mistaken impression that 

 its chief fare consists of slugs and cockroaches (it is really 

 far more likely to feed upon its purchaser's choicest sea- 

 kale and asparagus), buries itself in the ground at the first 

 approach of winter, and snoozes away five months of the 

 year in a most comfortable and dignified torpidity. A 



