The Romance of Natural History, Second Series

by Philip Henry Gosse

In reply to an inquiry whether he himself saw the Toad, and counted the timber-rings, Mr Bartlett favours me with the following note:—

"Exbury Parsonage, near Southampton,
February 22, 1861.

"Dear Sir,— ... I quite believe that Toads do live in stone, but I have found it very difficult to get the facts from eye-witnesses. The imbedded Toad in the fir-tree, mentioned by me in the Zoologist, I saw, and, as stated there, I counted the rings of the tree. I believe it to have been the common Toad; but it looked rather more flabby, and not quite so round in its proportions, as toads generally do; in fact, instead of being 'puffed up' as they commonly are, it was considerably down in the mouth, from its close imprisonment! The cavity in which it was fixed appeared to have been originally a crack or fissure in the side of the tree; whether caused by decay, or made by a nuthatch or some other bird, I cannot say. The wound appeared to have healed, as the bark had apparently closed over it. The question now arises, Was the Toad young when it got into the hollow? and did it grow after it became a prisoner? Or had it come to years of discretion, when it took that unfortunate step, or rather crawl, into the cavity where it was so long to be imprisoned? And why did it remain there so quietly, while the bark gradually grew over its prison-house? The answer that I should give to the first of these questions would be, that probably it had arrived at a state of toadhood when it took refuge in the tree, and did not grow afterwards. My theory why it remained ensconced there so quietly is this, that probably it might have been accustomed for some time to take refuge by day in this hole, from whence it would set out on its nocturnal rambles, and probably 'not go home till morning;' that on some occasion, 'when daylight did appear,' it returned to its accustomed haunt, and there squatted, winking and puffing, after its night's exploits, as toads are wont to do; that, on that luckless day, some felled tree or trees were laid up against the fir-tree that contained its abode, and that the tree or trees remained there till the bark closed so as to prevent its escape. What makes this idea the more probable is that the place where the fir-tree grew had, for probably years, been used as a place to store felled timber, as it was used for that purpose at the time I saw the Toad.

"After the discovery of this Toad in the fir-tree, I tried several experiments on Toads, by burying them in closely-sealed flower-pots, at a depth of nearly three feet. I much regret that I cannot find my notes on the subject; but I remember perfectly the main facts of one. The Toad was placed in a flower-pot, with another turned over it, and well cemented together—the two holes in both pots being also closely cemented up. It was buried between two and three feet deep in the garden. At the end of three months I took it up, and weighed the Toad, and found it had lost a very little in weight. This I did again at the end of three months more; it was then quite lively, and had lost again but little in weight. I replaced it as before, and on taking it up the third time, I found the pots had, probably the cement not having been dry when buried, slipped on one side, and the moisture had got in, and consequently the poor Toad was dead, as well as buried! Now, surely if a Toad could live six months hermetically sealed in a flower-pot, without air or food—why not a much longer time?...—Believe me, yours faithfully,

"J. Pemberton Bartlett."

The Rev. W. J. Bree of Allesley, also an excellent zoologist, alluding to some queries by Mr E. Newman, communicated the following facts:—"I quite agree with you that the statements about Toads found in solid stone are mostly very unsatisfactory. One instance of the kind I have seen, as briefly stated, Mag. Nat. Hist., ix. 316. The Toad appeared to me neither more nor less than our common species, although I certainly did not examine it scientifically. The stone was the new red sandstone of geologists; and was brought up, as I was told, some yards from below the surface. I understood the Toad, and the two portions of stone in which it was found inclosed, were deposited in some medical museum at Birmingham. The animal would not have been discovered but for an accident: the workmen were carting the stone away, and the block containing the Toad happened to be placed on the top of a great load, and accidentally fell from the cart to the ground, and, breaking by the fall, brought to light the incarcerated reptile, which, I conclude, was somewhat injured by the fall, as there was a fresh wound on one side of the head, and it appeared to be blind of one eye. The Toad died, I was informed, the second day after it was discovered, partly, in all probability, in consequence of the injury. When I say the block of stone was solid, this statement requires some qualification: the two parts of the stone fitted together exactly, and quite close, except where the cavity was in which the Toad lay; but from this cavity there was evidently a flaw on one side towards the extremity, and a discolouring of the substance of the sandstone, so that although the two portions fitted together, they might not have been (on one side of the cavity) very firmly united. This circumstance, perhaps, may detract from the value of the example; nevertheless, it is unaccountable how the animal could have got into the position in which it was found: it is not conceivable, I think, that it should have been there ever since the first formation of the rock, and there certainly appeared to be no means by which it could have entered the rock in its present state, even admitting (what we know to be the fact) that Toads have the power of getting in and out of a very small orifice."

The author of the next account, signed "E. Peacock," is unknown to me; and it does not appear whether he speaks from personal observation or not. He says, "A few days ago, two labourers, employed at a stone quarry at Frodingham, near Brigg, Lincolnshire, found, at a depth of five feet below the surface of the ground, and between two blocks of stone (lias), a living Toad: the interstice between the stones was filled with yellow clay, and there did not appear the least possible aperture by which anything could have passed."[99]

Even from remote India we have reports of the same phenomenon. A correspondent from Serampore sends the Zoologist the following:—"Last Wednesday, Feb. 7, 1849, on severing the branch of a tree, apparently of the tamarind species, I found a Toad in the centre of the wood, entirely excluded from light and air. The appearance of the animal was rather extraordinary. The body seemed full of air, and the skin soft and puffy, and of a light yellowish colour, with the exception of the extremities of the feet, which were hard and dark. The creature when exposed to the air seemed rather uncomfortable, and drew in its head just like a turtle when alarmed. It was thrown into a tank, when the water around, to the space of about a foot on either side, became perfectly white, like milk. It jumped out of the water immediately, apparently not liking the coldness. I did not have opportunity of observing it further, which I regret, as the animal got concealed in the long grass on the side of the tank, and was thus lost. The general supposition as to the mode by which animals get inclosed within trees, is their taking shelter in the cavity of a tree when very young, and the growth of the tree filling up the cavity, and thus imprisoning the animal. But this supposition, if true in the present case, makes the circumstance now related the more extraordinary. The tree is an old one, upwards of fifty feet high, and having a trunk more than three feet in diameter; and the height from the ground at which the Toad was found was about twelve feet. We must suppose the Toad to have got into the tree when within a foot from the ground: how many years old then must the animal be?"

The mention of the whitening of the water in which the Toad was immersed is to my mind a strong corroboration of the veracity of the preceding narrative. It is not a circumstance at all likely to occur to a mere inventor, as it does not in the least bear on the question of incarceration, and there is no attempt to explain it. I have occasionally seen fluids rendered partially opaque by the outflow of a milky secretion from animals immersed in them, as in the case of the curious Peripatus of Jamaica, which, when put alive into spirits, discharges a considerable quantity of white fluid, which diffuses in the alcohol. The Toad was probably distinct from our common English species, but we know that the latter secretes a yellow acrid fluid in some abundance in the follicles of its skin, and this might be poured out under the excitement of alarm or anger.

In the summer of 1851, the Académie des Sciences was interested (according to the public papers) with this question. In digging a well at Blois, in June of that year, "some workmen drew up from about a yard beneath the surface a large flint, weighing about fourteen pounds, and on striking it a blow with a pickaxe, it split in two, and discovered, snugly ensconced in the very centre, a large Toad. The Toad seemed for a moment greatly astonished, but jumped out, and rather rapidly crawled away. He was seized and replaced in the hole, when he settled himself down very quietly. The stone and Toad, just as they were, were sent to the Society of Sciences at Blois, and became immediately the subject of curious attention. First of all, the flint, fitted together, with the Toad in the hole, was placed in a cellar, and imbedded in moss. There it was left for some time. It is not known if the Toad ate, but it is certain that he made no discharge of any kind. It was found that if the top of the stone were cautiously removed in a dark place he did not stir, but that if the removal were effected in the light, he immediately got out and ran away. If he were placed on the edge of the flint, he would crawl into his hole, and fix himself comfortably in. He gathered his legs beneath his body; and it was observed that he took especial care of one of his feet, which had been slightly hurt in one of his removals. The hole is not one bit larger than the body, except a little where the back is. There is a sort of ledge on which his mouth reposes, and the bones of the jaws are slightly indented, as if from long resting on a hard substance. Not the slightest appearance of any communication whatsoever between the centre and the outside of the stone can be discovered, so that there is no reason to suppose that he could have drawn any nourishment from the outside. The committee, consisting of three eminent naturalists, one of whom has made Toads his peculiar study for years, made no secret of their belief that the Toad had been in that stone for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years; but how he could have lived without air, or food, or water, or movement, they made no attempt to explain. They accordingly contented themselves with proposing that the present should be considered another authentic case, to be added to the few hundreds already existing, of Toads being found alive imbedded in stone, leaving it to some future savant to explain what now appears the wonderful miracle by which Nature keeps them alive so long in such places. But the distinguished M. Majendie suggested that it was just possible that an attempt was being made to hoax the Academy, by making it believe that the Toad had been found in the hole, whereas it might only have been put in by the mischievous workmen after the stone was broken. Terrified at the idea of becoming the laughing-stock of the public, the Academy declined to take any formal resolution about the Toad, but thanked the committee for its very interesting communication; and so the subject dropped."