403 Miscellanies. 



armata, var. In ihe above enumeration those names without any au- 

 thor annexed are the new species of Dr. Jay. 



The plates are in general beautifully executed, although the author 

 expresses his regret in the introduction, that they do so little justice 

 to the originals. 



70. Lizards in Chalk. — We were more than two years since favored by a lady 

 of New York, formerly resident in England, with the copy of a letter, of which 

 the following is an extract. It is from the Rev. William Bassett, curate of Bran- 

 don in Suffolk, to a former college friend. Although it has lain on file till this 

 time, the facts have not become obsolete. — Sen. Ed. 



Mr. Farvell, a clergyman, formerly living at Elvedon, was present when some 

 workmen dug up two lizards at a depth of fifty feet in a chalk pit, and which on 

 being put into water lived till his father, having the care of them, let them escape. 

 The one about which I wrote was found at Brandon at the depth of twelve feet ; 

 lived and changed its skin twice, but escaping from a bowl in which it was kept, 

 was found dead. Dr. Clarke showed the two found by Mr. FarvelJ, for several 

 years at his lectures at Cambridge. 



At the time I wrote the letter to which your cousin adverts, Dr. Clarke thought^ 

 and I believed, that there were no living lizards in England of the same kind, but 

 have since seen them in the same Parish. 



I have observed that ponds in SuiFolk which abound with lizards in the spring, 

 contain none in the autumn or winter, and in directing a lad a few years since to 

 dig a hole in which to plant a tree, he in a solid piece of grass-land in my sight, dug 

 up two lizards, one like those found in the chalk, and the other the Lacertus vulga- 

 ris of Linnseus, though I know not what Cuvier calls it. Now I am as unable to 

 say how these lizards got into the place where I saw them found, as I am to tell 

 how the others got into the chalk ; but in the last, which I myself witnessed, they 

 seemed only to be hybernating, and to have removed themselves out of the reach 

 of frost. This discovery diminished certainly my former confidence, that the other 

 lizards had been so long in the chalk as I had thought, and although those found 

 by Mr. Farvell were fifty feet deep, yet I reflected that these pits were not sunk at 

 once, but in successive years ; and supposing one to be sunk forty nine feet in one 

 year, a lizard had only to burrow into the chalk one foot in order to be found fifty 

 feet from the original surface. I am now in suspense upon the subject.* Toads 

 and bats have often been found in trees alive, in situations where they must have 

 been many )'ears, and if an animal can live ten years in a tree or in the earth, I 

 know not where to fix any limit to the time its life may continue. As far as I re- 

 collect, the gentleman in Warwickshire, whose name was Hoare, found a toad and 

 a lizard in a rock in his garden, which he supposed must have been confined within 

 a foot of each other. Both, if not alive, became so on being exposed to the air. 



* What the really learned, such as Prof. Seilffwick, (to whom I communicated these fac!s, and 

 he said that he would speak to me about them, but I have not seen him since,) and Buckland say, 

 I know not. 



