APPENDIX. 395 



These phenomena remind us of others of a similar nature and 

 equally certain. 



In a trunk of an elm, about the size of a man's body, three or 

 four feet above the root, and precisely in the centre, was found, 

 in 1719, a live toad, of a moderate size, thin, and which occupied 

 but a very small space. As soon as the wood was cut, it came 

 out and slipped away very alertly. No tree could be more sound. 

 No place could be discovered through which it was possible for 

 the animal to have penetrated, which led the recorder of the fact 

 to suppose that the spawn from which it originated must, from 

 some unaccountable accident, have been in the tree from the very 

 moment of its first vegetation. The toad had lived in the tree 

 without air, and, what is still more surprising, had subsisted on 

 the substance of the wood, and had grown in proportion as the 

 tree had grown. This fact was attested by M. Hebert, Ancient 

 Professor of Philosophy at Caen. 



In 1731, M. Leigne wrote to the Academy of Sciences at Paris 

 an account of a phenomenon exactly similar to the preceding one, 

 except that the tree was larger, and was an oak instead of an 

 elm, which makes the instance the more surprising. From the 

 size of the oak, M. Leigne judged that the toad must have ex- 

 isted in it without air or any external nourishment, for the space 

 of eighty or a hundred years. 



We shall cite a third instance, related in a letter the 5th Feb. 

 1780, written from the neighborhood of Saint Mexeut, of which 

 the following is a copy. 



i/^A few days ago, I ordered an oak tree of a tolerable size to 

 be cut down, and converted into a beam that was wanting for a 

 building I was then constructing. Having separated the head 

 from the trunk, three men were employed in squaring it to the 

 proper size. About four inches were to be cut away on each 

 side. I was present during the transaction. Conceive what was 

 their astonishment when I saw them throw aside their tools, start 

 back from the tree, and fix their eyes on the same point with a 

 kind of amazement and terror. I instantly approached, and 

 looked at that part of the tree which had fixed their attention. 

 My surprise equalled theirs, on seeing a toad, about the size of a 

 large pullet's egg, incrusted, in a manner, in the tree, at the dis- 

 tance of four inches from the diameter and fifteen from the root. 



