Embedded Reptiles. By the President. 501 



Well, it is evident that he must have been there at least for 

 about nine months, but he may have been there much longer. 



We have records of many interesting experiments for the 

 purpose of finding out how long such creatures will remain 

 alive, either simply buried in the earth, or entirely cut off from 

 visible access to air and food. Mr Jesse, the well-known 

 naturalist, relates that a gentleman put a toad into a small 

 flower pot, and having secured it so that apparently no insect 

 could penetrate, buried it in the ground beyond the influence of 

 frost. At the end of, how many years do you think ? — twenty 

 years ! he took it up, and found the toad increased in size, and 

 quite healthy. Then we have careful series of experiments by 

 Dr Edwards of Paris, and by Dean Buckland, the latter being 

 recorded at length by his son, the late Mr Frank Buckland, in 

 his "Curiosities of Natural History," where toads were confined 

 in holes cut in blocks of wood, sandstone, and limestone, 

 hermetically sealed by covers of glass ; the conclusion being that 

 toads cannot live a year totally excluded from direct access to 

 air, or more than two years without food. 



Now, on this I must insist, that no experiments on animals in 

 a state of nature can be considered satisfactory or conclusive, 

 unless the natural conditions of their lives are exactly repro- 

 duced or imitated ; and the conditions in these experiments were, 

 in more than one particular, so confessedly imperfect, that Mr 

 Buckland admits that they are not decisive to show that a state 

 of torpid, or suspended animation, may not be endured for a 

 much longer time by toads which are healthy and well-fed up to 

 the moment of natural retirement. 



In many cases, notably those at Bamborough and in the 

 bridge at Durham, it is obvious that, owing to the porosity of 

 the plaster or the stone, a portion of air sufficient to maintain 

 life in the torpid state, found its way. It is noted that the great 

 majority of instances of imprisoned reptiles have occurred in 

 stone or wood of a not very dense character. Under such 

 circumstances the power of cutaneous respiration is obvious, and 

 is, in fact, the key to the secret of the retention of life by frogs 

 and toads during the torpid state for whatever periods. 



This power possessed by the skin of Batrachians, of effecting 

 the same changes in the blood as do lungs or gills, is one of the 

 most interesting features in the economy of these marvellously 

 constructed animals ; and it has been j-^roved that their pulmou- 



