We may now inquire whether or not the foregoing considerations may serve to throw any light upon the tales of the quarryman. The first point to which attention may be directed is that involved in the statement that the amphibian has been imprisoned in a solid rock. Much stress is usually laid on the fact that the rock was solid; this fact being held to imply the great age, not to say antiquity, of the rock and its supposed tenant. The impartial observer, after an examination of the evidence presented, will be inclined to doubt greatly the justification for inserting the adjective "solid"; for usually no evidence whatever is forthcoming as to the state of the rock prior to its removal. No previous examination of the rock is or can be made, from the circumstance that no interest can possibly attach to its condition until its removal reveals the apparent wonder it contained, in the shape of the live toad. And it is equally important to note that we rarely, if ever, find mention of any examination of the rock being made subsequently to the discovery. Hence, a first and grave objection may be taken to the validity of the supposition that the rock was solid, and it may be fairly urged that on this supposition the whole question turns and depends. For if the rock cannot be proved to have been impermeable to and barred against the entrance of living creatures, the objector may proceed to show the possibility of the toad having gained admission, under certain notable circumstances, to its prison-house.
The frog or toad in its young state, and having just entered upon its terrestrial life, is a small creature, which could, with the utmost ease, wriggle into crevices and crannies of a size which would almost preclude such apertures being noticed at all. Gaining access to a roomier crevice or nook within, and finding there a due supply of air, along with a dietary consisting chiefly of insects, the animal would grow with tolerable rapidity, and would increase to such an extent that egress through its aperture of entrance would become an impossibility. Next, let us suppose that the toleration of the toad's system to starvation and to a limited supply of air is taken into account, together with the fact that these creatures will hibernate during each winter, and thus economize, as it were, their vital activity and strength; and after the animal has thus existed for a year or two—no doubt under singularly hard conditions—let us imagine that the rock is split up by the wedge and lever of the excavator. We can then readily enough account for the apparently inexplicable story of "the toad in the rock." "There is the toad and here is the solid rock," say the gossips. "There is an animal which has singular powers of sustaining life under untoward conditions, and which, in its young state, could have gained admittance to the rock through a mere crevice," says the naturalist in reply. Doubtless, the great army of the unconvinced may still believe in the tale as told them; for the weighing of evidence and the placing pros and cons in fair contrast are not tasks of congenial or wonted kind in the ordinary run of life. Some people there will be who will believe in the original solid rock and its toad, despite the assertion of the geologists that the earliest fossils of toads appear in almost the last-formed rocks, and that a live toad in rocks of very ancient age—presuming, according to the popular belief, that the animal was enclosed when the rock was formed—would be as great an anomaly and wonder as the mention, as an historical fact, of an express train or the telegraph in the days of the patriarchs. In other words, the live toad which hops out of an Old Red Sandstone rock must be presumed, on the popular belief, to be older by untold ages than the oldest fossil frogs and toads. The reasonable mind, however, will ponder and consider each feature of the case, and will rather prefer to countenance a supposition based on ordinary experience, than an explanation brought ready-made from the domain of the miraculous; whilst not the least noteworthy feature of these cases is that included in the remark of Smellie, respecting the tendency of uneducated and superstitious persons to magnify what is uncommon, and in his sage conclusion that as a rule such persons in the matter of their relations "are not to be trusted."
But it must also be noted that we possess valuable evidence of a positive and direct kind bearing on the duration of life in toads under adverse circumstances. As this evidence tells most powerfully against the supposition that the existence of those creatures can be indefinitely prolonged, it forms of itself a veritable court of appeal in the cases under discussion. The late Dr. Buckland, curious to learn the exact extent of the vitality of the toad, caused, in the year 1825, two large blocks of stone to be prepared. One of the blocks was taken from the oölite limestone, and in this first stone twelve cells were excavated. Each cell was one foot deep and five inches in diameter. The mouth of each cell was grooved so as to admit of two covers being placed over the aperture; the first or lower cover being of glass, and the upper one of slate. Both covers were so adapted that they could be firmly luted down with clay or putty; the object of this double protection being that the slate cover could be raised so as to inspect the contained object through the closed glass cover without admitting air. In the second or sandstone block, a series of twelve cells was also excavated; these latter cells being, however, of smaller size than those of the limestone block, each cell being only six inches in depth by five inches in diameter. These cells were likewise fitted with double covers.
On November 26th, 1825, a live toad—kept for some time previously to insure its being healthy—was placed in each of the twenty-four cells. The largest specimen weighed 1185 grains, and the smallest 115 grains. The stones and the immured toads were buried on the day mentioned, three feet deep, in Dr. Buckland's garden. There they lay until December 10th, 1826, when they were disinterred and their tenants examined. All the toads in the smaller cells of the sandstone block were dead, and from the progress of decomposition it was inferred that they had succumbed long before the date of disinterment. The majority of the toads in the limestone block were alive, and, curiously enough, one or two had actually increased in weight. Thus, No. 5, which at the commencement of its captivity had weighed 1185 grains, had increased to 1265 grains; but the glass cover of No. 5's cell was found to be cracked. Insects and air must therefore have obtained admittance and have afforded nourishment to the imprisoned toad; this supposition being rendered the more likely by the discovery that in one of the cells, the covers of which were also cracked and the tenant of which was dead, numerous insects were found. No. 9, weighing originally 988 grains, had increased during its incarceration to 1116 grains; but No. 1, which in the year 1825 had weighed 924 grains, was found in December, 1826, to have decreased to 698 grains; and No. 11, originally weighing 936 grains, had likewise disagreed with the imprisonment, weighing only 652 grains when examined in 1826.
At the period when the blocks of stone were thus prepared, four toads were pinned up in holes five inches deep and three inches in diameter, cut in the stem of an apple-tree; the holes being firmly plugged with tightly fitting wooden plugs. These four toads were found to be dead when examined along with the others in 1826; and of four others enclosed in basins made of plaster of Paris, and which were also buried in Dr. Buckland's garden, two were found to be dead at the end of a year, their comrades being alive, but looking starved and meagre. The toads which were found alive in the limestone block in December, 1826, were again immured and buried, but were found to be dead, without leaving a single survivor, at the end of the second year of their imprisonment.
These experiments may fairly be said to prove two points. They firstly show that under circumstances even of a favorable kind when compared with the condition popularly believed in—namely, that of being enclosed in a solid rock—the limit of the toad's life may be assumed to be within two years; this period being no doubt capable of being extended when the animal gains a slight advantage, exemplified by the admission of air and insect-food. Secondly, we may reasonably argue that these experiments show that toads when rigorously treated, like other animals, become starved and meagre, and by no means resemble the lively, well-fed animals reported as having emerged from an imprisonment extending, in popular estimation, through periods of inconceivable duration.
These tales are, in short, as devoid of actual foundation as are the modern beliefs in the venomous properties of the toad, or the ancient beliefs in the occult and mystic powers of various parts of its frame when used in incantations. Shakespeare, whilst attributing to the toad venomous qualities, has yet immortalized it in his famous simile by crediting it with the possession of a "precious jewel." But even in the latter case the animal gets but scant justice; for science strips it of its poetical reputation, and in this, as in other respects, shows it, despite fable and myth, to be zoölogically an interesting, but otherwise a commonplace member of the animal series.
