500 Embedded Reptiles. By the President. 



The important point — what communication existed (if any) 

 between the cavity and the "back," two feet distant, must, as a 

 physical certainty, for ever remain unsolved — unless, indeed, we 

 are satisfied to accept as final, the express and reiterated declara- 

 tion of the men that there was none whatever. 



The men no doubt are honest enough, there may be no inten- 

 tion to deceive, but they may have overlooked the presence of 

 one, or of the evidences of a former one. To establish a fact in 

 natural history, especially in the life or surroundings of an 

 animal, requires the most careful and experienced observation. 



But after what has been said, we shall, I think, assume as a 

 moral certainty, the existence of a communication with the outer 

 world, probably in the shape of a water- worn channel, through 

 which, possibly years ago, but most probably in the spring of 

 1883, after the removal of the overlying shale and earth, an 

 ovum, a tadpole, or much more likely a very young frog, 

 wandered, or was washed in by rain or stream. 



I am not inclined to support the ovum or tadpole theory, for 

 the reason that tadpoles are aquatic creatures, and, like fish, 

 cannot respire air except that contained in the water in which 

 they swim, not being able to live in the air until they cease to 

 be tadpoles. 



Inside the cavity it must have grown up into the adult stage • 

 for my opinion, after careful examination in which the foreman 

 fully agreed, was, that the passage of any but the very smallest 

 young frog down the ''back" was impossible. 



At certain seasons there is no lack of small frogs. After 

 emerging from the tadpole stage, they wander in the vicinity of 

 their parent waters in such vast numbers, that sometimes they 

 are taken up by local whirlwinds, carried to a distance by strong 

 currents, and fall in the shape of the proverbial '* shower of 

 Frogs." 



Moreover, the first effort of the juvenile frog is to seek a 

 secure retreat, for it has numerous enemies ; so that an individual 

 who had entered, when young, willingly or forcibly, by some very 

 narrow aperture, would soon increase in bulk, could he get 

 suitable food, sufficiently to render escape impossible, and then 

 might become torpid, and live on for years. 



Our interest is thus chiefly centered in the enquiries — 



" How long may our frog have been shut in ■ how did he get 

 food?" 



