NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 33 



to test the truth of these stories, and we may give the result in 

 his own words : — 



" Twelve circular cells were prepared in a block of sandstone, to each 

 of which a plate-glass was fitted. Toads were then placed in these cells 

 and buried beneath three feet of earth, where they were left for over a year. 

 Every toad shut up in sandstone died ; but the greater number of those 

 in the porous limestone were still alive, though greatly emaciated ; these 

 were again shut up, and by the end of the second year every toad had 

 died. I also enclosed four toads in holes cut in the trunk of an apple- 

 tree, and closed the holes with a plug of wood; all these toads were 

 found dead at the end of a year. It seems from these experiments to 

 follow that toads cannot live a year totally excluded from atmospheric air, 

 or two years entirely excluded from food. Admitting that toads are found 

 in cavities of stone and wood, we may account for it by supposing that the 

 toad seeks a cavity while in the tadpole state, and feeds on insects which, 

 like itself, seek shelter within such cavities. It then becomes too large to 

 leave the hole ; but there is always some small crack by which air and food 

 can come in to support life. This tiny aperture is very likely to be over- 

 looked by workmen, who are the only people whose work on stone or wood 

 leads them to disclose cavities in these substances. No examination is 

 made until the toad is discovered by breaking the mass in which it was 

 contained, and then it is too late to ascertain, without carefully replacing 

 every fragment (and in no case that I have seen reported has this been 

 done), whether or not there was any crevice or hole by which the animal 

 may have entered the cavity." 



These experiments are not the only ones placed on record by 

 the biographer. We must not forget the original steps which 

 were taken by Dr. Buckland, in his attempt to discover the 

 species of wild animal by which the prehistoric cattle of York- 

 shire were killed and their remains dragged into the great cave at 

 Kirkdale.* They might have been Bears, or Wolves, or Hysenas. 

 The professor of geology thought the evidence pointed to 

 Hyaenas, and he set to work to prove his theory in a most in- 

 genious way. 



In the Kirkdale cave he had found a portion of a skull which 

 he believed to be that of a young Hyaena, but not having an un- 

 doubted skull of this species with which to compare it, he applied 

 to Dr. Burchell, the African traveller (after whom the so-called 



*The bone cave of Kirkdale was discovered in 1821, in the Vale of 

 Pickering, about twenty-five miles from York, and was the first fossil cave 

 known in England. 



ZOOLOGIST, THIRD SERIES, VOL. XIX, JAN. 1895. D 



