The Romance of Natural History, Second Series

by Philip Henry Gosse

The Rev. Alfred Charles Smith, an excellent and genial naturalist, favours us with another case, introducing it incidentally in illustration of the general habit he is denouncing of wantonly destroying animal life:—"As an instance of this thoughtless cruelty, I must give an account that has just come to my notice. Some labourers were pulling down an old wall, in the thickness of which they found one of those phenomena—so frequently heard of and so unsatisfactorily accounted for—a Toad completely imbedded in stone and mortar. 'There was no doubt,' said the labourer who described it, 'that he had been there for a great number of years, for there was no hole or chink by which he could have entered or left the place of his long sojourn.' 'Well,' said the listener to his account, 'but are you sure that the Toad was alive when you found it?' 'No doubt of that, sir,' said the man, 'for he crawled out of his round hole and was moving away, when I knocked him on the head with my pickaxe.'

"So here was this poor harmless creature, whose long incarceration in his gloomy dungeon might have excited compassion in his favour, suddenly released from his prison, only to be slain by his liberator!"[103]

The next is from the Caledonian Mercury. Newspaper zoology is proverbially untrustworthy, and the editor of the Zoologist, who reprints the paragraph, kindly adds a caveat for the benefit of his readers,—"Nimium ne crede Mercurio!" But, nevertheless, let us look at it: alone it would stand for little, but, remember, in such questions as this the evidence is cumulative. "There is at present to be seen at Messrs Sanderson and Sons, George Street, Edinburgh, an extraordinary specimen of natural history—a Frog which had been discovered alive in freestone rock. A few months ago, while some colliers in the employ of Mr James Nasmyth (lessee of Dundonald Colliery, in Fife, the property of R. B. Wardlaw Ramsay, Esq. of Whitehill), were engaged in taking out the pavement of the seam coal, which was freestone, they discovered a cavity in which a Frog was lying. On touching it the Frog jumped about for some time, and a bucket of water being procured, it was put into it, and taken to the surface. On reaching it, the animal was found to be dead. It was at the depth of forty-five fathoms, or ninety yards from the surface, in a perpendicular line of strata, consisting of alternate layers of coal and freestone, with ironstone, and about four hundred yards from the outcrop surface. The Frog seems to have much of the same character as the present species. It is very attenuated, which cannot be wondered at, considering its domicile for so many ages, its original existence being of course considered contemporaneous with the formation of the freestone rock in which it was contained."[104]

Now, again, we get the statement of a careful working naturalist, Mr Thomas Clark of Halesleigh. He cannot, indeed, give personal authority for what he records; but the confidence of such a man in his informant is an element not without its value. "March 25, 1859. In the early part of this month, two live Toads were dug out from the bottom of a bed of stiff brick clay, in the neighbourhood of Bridgewater, at the depth of fourteen feet from the surface of the ground; a third was killed by the spade before they were observed. This bed of clay rests on peat, and the Toads were found at the junction of the two beds, in a small domed cavity, about the size of the crown of a man's hat. On being exposed to the air, they uttered a squeaking cry, resembling that of a rat, but in about a minute they seemed reconciled to their new destiny, and moved freely about. They were kept in a jar for a few days, and then placed at liberty in a garden, where I suppose they are still living. The living ones were about two inches in length, but narrow in proportion, and of a rather lighter colour than Toads usually are; the one which was killed was very much larger. The clay under which they were buried had been gradually dug out from the surface since about the beginning of the year, but the last five feet of depth was not dug till the day on which they were discovered. After about two feet of the surface, the clay is very close and adhesive, and far too moist to admit of cracks being formed in it, even in the driest summers."[105]

To this communication inserted in the Zoologist, Mr Newman added a note asking the name of any scientific man who was present at the exhumation. Mr Clark replies:—"I am unable to give such a name, further than as the intelligent foreman of the brickyard, Thomas Duddridge, (who witnessed the exhumation by one of the labourers of the yard,) may be entitled to the appellation; but no one, however high his scientific attainments, could be more careful than he was to give me correct information, or more exact in his statements; and if, after minute inquiry, I had not been fully satisfied of the correctness of his account, I should not have sought to occupy the pages of the Zoologist with its recital. On shewing him the notice in the Zoologist, he said it was impossible for anything to be more correct; and he added, that the little cavity which the Toads occupied was quite smooth in every part, apparently by their long-continued movements,—as smooth, to use his own illustration, as the inside of a China bowl."[106]

Numerous experiments have been made with a view to test the possibility of these reputed facts. If Toads do so commonly become voluntarily or accidentally immured, and remain without light, food, or even air, for many years, and yet survive, let us put some Toads into similar circumstances, keep them shut up, and, after the lapse of a sufficient interval, examine them, and see whether they are alive or dead. "Experimentum faciemus in corpore vili," as the village doctor said to his assistant over the sick traveller.

Probatum est! Besides the case mentioned in Mr Bartlett's letter (ante, p. 149), the late Dr Buckland, in November 1825, instituted a series of careful experiments, which are thus narrated by himself:—"In one large block of coarse oolitic limestone, twelve circular cells were prepared, each about one foot deep and five inches in diameter, and having a groove or shoulder at its upper margin fitted to receive a circular plate of glass, and a circular slate to protect the glass: the margin of this double cover was closed round and rendered impenetrable to air and water by a luting of soft clay. Twelve smaller cells, each six inches deep and five inches in diameter, were made in another block of compact siliceous sandstone, viz., the Pennant Grit of the coal formation near Bristol; these cells also were covered with similar plates of glass and slate, cemented at the edge by clay. The object of the glass covers was to allow the animals to be inspected, without disturbing the clay so as to admit external air or insects into the cell. The limestone is so porous that it is easily permeable by water, and probably also by air; the sandstone is very compact.

"On the 26th of November 1825, one live Toad was placed in each of the above-mentioned twenty-four cells, and the double cover of glass and slate placed over each of them, and cemented down by the luting of clay. The weight of each Toad in grains was ascertained and noted by Dr Daubeny and Mr Dillwyn at the time of their being placed in the cells; that of the smallest was 115 grains, and of the largest 1185 grains. The large and small animals were distributed in equal proportion between the limestone and sandstone cells.

"These blocks of stone were buried together in my garden beneath three feet of earth, and remained unopened until the 10th of December 1826, on which day they were examined. Every Toad in the smaller cells of the compact sandstone was dead, and the bodies of most of them so much decayed that they must have been dead some months. The greater number of those in the larger cells of porous limestone were alive. No. 1, whose weight when immured was 924 grains, now weighed only 698 grains. No. 5, whose weight when immured was 1185 grains, now weighed 1265 grains. The glass cover over this cell was slightly cracked, so that minute insects might have entered: none, however, were discovered in this cell; but in another cell whose glass was broken, and the animal within it dead, there was a large assemblage of minute insects; and a similar assemblage also on the outside of the glass of a third cell. In cell No. 9, a Toad which when put in weighed 988 grains, had increased to 1116 grains, and the glass cover over it was entire; but as the luting of the cell within which this Toad had increased in weight was not particularly examined, it is probable there was some aperture in it by which small insects found admission. No. 11 had decreased from 936 grains to 652 grains.