Reptiles, 



8137 



sunk from the surface, the little animal would certainly have been found fourteen feet 

 below the surface, and the event as certainly chronicled in all our newspapers, as 

 another instance of the longevity of toads." Now it may be inferred by the readers of 

 the review that some such side communication most probably existed in the case of the 

 toads noticed by me, and I therefore wish to show, by a short description of the place 

 where they were found, that there could not be any such communication. The place 

 is a clay-field (now nearly dug out for bricks), of about an acre in extent, of a 

 triangular form, and nearly surrounded by water; that is, it has a canal on one side, 

 a mill-stream on another, and a deep brook on the other side. The surface of the 

 field before it was dug was but little above the surface of the surrounding streams, 

 and the spot where the toads were found is many feet lower than the bottoms of the 

 streams. There could not, therefore, be any side communication in this case; nor is 

 it easy to see how there could be one from the surface, through a bed fourteen feet 

 thick, of close, moist, adhesive clay, as close and moist and adhesive as a cask of 

 butter. I have no opinion to offer on this obscure question ; but it seems to me that 

 the records of toads having been found immured, apparently for centuries, are too 

 numerous and too well-authenticated to be lightly passed by, and that, like the various 

 accounts of the sea serpent, they deserve the careful investigation of naturalists and 

 physiologists. — Thomas Clark; Halesleigh. 



[A great many notices on this subject have appeared during the past three months 

 in the columns of the 'Field' newspaper: these communications were induced by a 

 paragraph in the 'Worcester Herald' of March 1 5th, stating that a frog had been 

 found in a coal mine imbedded in the solid coal. Of course numerous sceptics came 

 forward to dispute the fact, and numerous advocates of the " toad-in-hole " hypothesis 

 arranged themselves per contra, and charged the sceptics with "sheer ignorance and 

 sheer prejudice;" but to a logician the admission of the advocates of the hypothesis 

 will appear rather damaging; the Worcester miracle has appeared with these little 

 alterations, — " the frog was in loose shale ;" " it was found in the prickings ;" " there 

 were ponds on the surface, in which frogs were plentiful ;" " there was nothing to pre- 

 vent frogs falling into the pit if they had been so foolish as to go near enough;" 

 "there was daily opportunity for a frog going down in the baskets used for coal, but 

 that did not bear on the question." In support of the Worcester frog, the Lichfield 

 frog has been again brought into the witness-box : this frog had been imbedded in 

 solid rock for countless centuries, and at the time of the Restoration that particular 

 cube of stone which he had selected for his domicile was hewn from its native quarry 

 and placed on the summit of one of the spires of Lichfield Cathedral, which it is said 

 that Cromwell's iron cannon-balls had crumbled about the ears of the human canons 

 engaged at their devotions within. Charles II., a monarch of great piety, ordered the 

 restoration of the spire, and restored it was, the frog-honoured stone forming the apex ; 

 but, says the historian, " a century afterwards they (the spires) were much dilapidated, 

 and had to be repaired. One of the stones that were thrown down from the top of a 

 spire was broken by the fall, and in the centre was found a living frog. It is very 

 remarkable that the frog could have lived in such a position high and dry for one 

 hundred years." With this profound observation, in which I cordially concur, I must 

 leave the matter with ray readers. — Edward Neivman.'] 



VOL. XX. 



