3808 Fishes. — Reptiles . 



Note on the conveyance of Fish-spawn to New Zealand. — You are aware that I 

 Lave been successful the last four or five years in the artificial breeding of trout in the 

 river Wandle. About two years ago, a gentleman applied to me for some spawn to 

 take with him to New Zealand, for the purpose of stocking the rivers there. I am 

 glad to say that the experiment has succeeded, and that he has applied to Government 

 for the reward offered for the introduction of fish into that country. I believe the 

 spawn was taken out in tanks with Valisneria, according to Mr. Warington's system. 

 — S. Gurney, jwn. ; Carshalton, February 10, 1853. 



Occurrence of Toads in Stone. — One may well feel surprise to find another of these 

 marvellous relations in the pages of the ' Zoologist' (3632), especially as it is one that 

 supplies not a fraction of additional proof of the fact, or of the possibility of such oc- 

 currences against the well known laws of Nature. I generally find these second-hand 

 relations all of a kind, and taking place under a pretty similar routine of circumstan- 

 ces. There is the same " simple tale " from the guileless miners, who show the broken 

 stone with the hole in the centre, and talk about the toad or frog, with its lively sense 

 of self-preservation as soon as it is liberated, so lively, in fact, that he always escapes, 

 or is unfortunately smashed ; then, they never think of preserving it ; and so runs their 

 " simple tale." Now, I am a total unbeliever in these " simple tales," for in my geolo- 

 gical rambles I have never lost an opportunity of searching for cases amongst the very 

 men who pretend to have witnessed them, and the result of my several examinations 

 has been, in many cases, T am sorry to say, to find an amount of downright imposition 

 among the miners, or a mere repetition of hearsay accounts of how Mikey, who has 

 always left for some distant quarry, once was breaking a stone, and found a toad; and 

 then follow the usual particulars. I can relate one of my experiences, which the read- 

 ers of the ' Zoologist ' may perhaps consider sufficient to establish my disbelief in the 

 tales of" toads in blocks of stone," quite independently of any scientific consideration 

 on the subject. A few years ago I was geologizing in the neighbourhood of Chester- 

 field, and came upon a quarryman, who related to me, while we drank a bottle of por- 

 ter, that toads were plentiful in the stone thereabout. He said he had often found 

 them, and that he knew a stone before it was broken that would contain a toad ; giv- 

 ing me long and circumstantial accounts of the whole phenomenon : and to convince 

 me of the truth of his statement, he took me to the quarry (a carboniferous sandstone) 

 that I might see the stones out of which he said the toads had been released. I exa- 

 mined the stones and the whole quarry very attentively, and listened to the emphatic 

 testimony of other miners present. After complying in an agreeable manner to their 

 remark that the day was warm, and the water of the quarry not much in favour, I 

 made a simple proposal of this nature : — I promised to pay to any one of them the 

 sum of twenty shillings for the next stone in which they found a frog or toad when the 

 stone was broken in two. They should catch the frog if he bolted out of the hole, re- 

 place him, and fit the stones together again, afterwards despatching it to me in that 

 condition. I further promised to pay the sum of forty shillings to any one of them who 

 should procure me a stone, unbroken, in which he considered a toad or frog was im- 

 prisoned, if, on breaking it myself, such turned out to be the case. These conditions 

 were to remain in force for twelve months ; and as the means of conveyance to my 



