OF NATURAL HISTORY. 127 



men, by long pradice, acquire the faculty of retaining the air In 

 their lungs for an almofl; incredible length of time. Some of thofe 

 wretched creatures who are compelled by tyranny to dive for pearl- 

 oyfters, have been known to continue under water three quarters of 

 an hour without receiving a frefh fupply of air. Thofe animala 

 which He torpid during the winter, as the hedge-hog, the dormoufe, 

 the marmot, &c. though perhaps not entirely deprived of all com- 

 munication with the air, exift, without any apparent breathing, till 

 the heat of the fpring reftores their wonted powers of life, when the 

 refpiration of air becomes again equally neceffary as before their 

 torpor commenced. The toad, like all the frog-kind, is torpid in 

 winter. At the approach of winter, the toad retires to the hollow 

 root of a tree, to the cleft of a rock, and fometimes to the bottom of 

 a ditch or pond, where it remains for months in a ftate of feeming 

 infenfibility. In this laft fituation, it can have very little commu- 

 mication with the air. But ftill the principle of life is continued, 

 and the animal revives in the fpring. What is more wonderful, 

 toads have been found, in a hundred places of the globe, inclofed in 

 the heart of folid rocks, and in the bodies of trees, where they have 

 been fuppofed to exift for centuries, without any apparent accefs 

 either to nourifhment or to air ; and yet they were alive and vigo- 

 rous. In the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for the year 

 1719, we have an account of a toad found alive, and healthy, in the 

 heart of an old elm. Another, in the year 1731, was difcovered, 

 near Nantz, in the heart of an old oak, without any vifible entrance 

 to its habitation. From the fize of the tree, it was concluded, that 

 the animal muft have been confined in that fituation at leaft eighty 

 or a hundred years. In the many examples of toads found in folid 

 rocks, exa£t ImprefTions of the animals bodies, correfponding to their 

 refpedive fizes, were uniformly left in the ftones or trees from 

 which they were diflodged ; and, to this day, it is faid, that there is 

 a marble chimney-piece at Chatfworth with a print ©f a toad in it; 



and 



