NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
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sounds more like a legend lhan a story, of an untombed frog, in whose body was 
discovered an ancient Aztec coin. 
So — taking all things — the twentieth century included — into consideration, 
the toad’s ancient repute for the most opposing qualities of good and evil should 
cause no wonder. It has its uses, for which we are its debtors, the ungainly, 
misunderstood little animal of Shakespeare’s time that points these lines of 
matchless verse : — 
“ Sweet are the uses of adversity. 
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous. 
Wears yet a precious jewel in its head.” 
C. S. II. 
Toad. — Is it possible for a toad to live 100,000 years without food and wit 
very little air? There is a specimen on view here (Rugby) which jumped out of 
a lump of coal which was being broken up on a fire. I saw it myself yesterday 
(February 23), a week after it made its appearance. It looks very ordinary, 
though rather smaller and flatter than the common species. It has a mouth 
which it either will not or cannot open. It is kept sealed up in a glass bottle so 
as to give it, as much as possible, an imitation of the position in which it was 
found. It seems in rather a drowsy condition. I have heard of toads being 
found in marble and chalk, but not in coal. How could it have become embedded 
so deep in the coal, since at that depth it is reckoned to be about 100,000 years 
old? 
A Rugby Selbornian. 
[Our correspondents altogether under-estimate the age of these toads in holes. 
If they were, as supposed, buried at the time of the formation of the coal or stone 
in which they are found, it is not a question of a paltry 100,000 years, but one of 
millions. Judging from newspapers and magazines for many years back, such 
“discoveries” are by no means uncommon. Without wishing to say that all 
are cases of wilful imposture as a source of profit from a raree show, we must say 
that we have had evidence that the manufacture of “Carboniferous” toads is 
a regular industry in some places. Speaking seriously, the toad is a highly 
organised and geologically modern species, no member of the group being known 
earlier than Tertiary times ; it hibernates in any hole it can find ; it may fall 
dow’n a well ; and lastly, few of the recorded cases bear any proof of careful 
or scientific observation at the time. By the bye, clay, or hydrous silicate of 
alumina, is not very likely to form marble, or crystalline carbonate of lime.- 
Ed. N.N.\ 
Migration of British Insects. — The migratory instinct is so mar- 
vellous and shrouded in mystery as to give rise to endless theories and specula- 
tion. The senses and actions of the lower creatures are in many respects foreign 
to and beyond our own experience. We are unable to understand how they 
display intelligence of a kind in which cultivated human beings are deficient. 
We cannot imagine how insignificant creatures, made of flesh and blood, and, 
like us, accustomed to physical exertion under ordinary circumstances, are also 
capable of it in the highest degree under conditions when all our own powers at 
once desert and fail us. We often cannot tell why migration takes place at all ; 
or why fatal journeys are in some cases persisted in from generation to generation, 
that are of no apparent good to the race whence they came. These are some of 
the puzzles that the migrations of animals suggest to us. 
Necessity of food and climate, and also the sexual instinct, are given as reasons 
for these migratory movements ; and an “inherited habit” is said to be a potent 
factor in influencing them all. There are, however, cases of migration which 
cannot possibly be said to spring from any transmitted or inherited habit. This 
is particularly the case with some insects. 
At regular times in the year certain kinds of our common British Lepidoptera, 
and Libellulidte, or Dragon Flies, are to be seen journeying over Heligoland, the 
most favourable spot in the world for observations of this kind, in countless 
clouds ; some of which are known to arrive on the east coast of England. Whence 
they start, and why they go is as yet unknown. Unlike birds which perform 
two annual journeys, one to their summer, the other to their winter abode, 
these insects make but one. Their journeys across Heligoland are always in 
