210 OUT OF DOORS. 



in due season. Thou openest Thine hand, and fillest all 

 things living with plenteousness.' 



Strange discoveries are sometimes made in the 

 course of gardening operations, if people will only use 

 their eyes. A few years ago, while some workmen were 

 pecking up the gravel in a playground belonging to a 

 school at Oxford, preparatory to making certain altera- 

 tions, they came on a little colony of frogs, about seven 

 or eight inches below the surface, all sitting packed 

 closely together, and all with their noses pointing to 

 the surface. How long they had been in that situation 

 I could not discover ; but by comparing one circum- 

 stance with another, I came to the conclusion that the 

 frogs had settled themselves down for their winter's 

 slumber about two years previous to their disinterment, 

 been covered with gravel when the playground was laid 

 down, and had remained there perforce ever since. 

 They were so firmly imbedded in the earth that they 

 could not stir a limb, and must have depended wholly 

 for respiration and subsistence on the small modicum 

 of atmosphere and the very few insects that might 

 make their way through the minute crevices which 

 exist in all soil. In general the winter's retreat of the 

 frog is in the muddy soil at the bottom of some pool or 

 ditch, where they congregate closely together in masses, 

 and remain without need of food or respiration until 

 the spring. 



In 1857 I was walking in the grounds of a gentle- 

 man living near Oxford, who was making considerable 



