Strange stories of the animal world : A book of curious contributions to natural history / by John Timbs.
- John Timbs
- Date:
- 1866
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Strange stories of the animal world : A book of curious contributions to natural history / by John Timbs. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![of collecting tlie insects that were found within them, and which, being caught during the night, were often of such species as are not often found. The same experiment elicited another curious fact, namely, the great tenacity of life possessed hy some insects. Before ])inning out the insects that were found, and which were mostly beetles, they had been allowed to remain in the water for several days, and were apparently dead. Yet, when they were pinned on cork, they revived ; and when they were visited, were found sprawling about in a lively manner ! The question. Can Frogs and Toads live in blocks of stone or wood ? has been settled at page 45 in the negative. However, the evidence continues to accumulate. Sir Alex- ander Gordon Gumming, of Altyre, while insj)ecting the railway works at that place in 1864, saw “numbers of living Toads taken out of the conglomerate at depths of from fifteen to twenty-four feet from the surface : an extensive, and seem- ingly unbroken, bed of rock covers the stratum in which these living Toads were found. When the rock was blasted, the Toads were found imbedded in holes, like a hen’s egg, cut lengthwise in half.” ]\lr. Gosse, in the second series of his Natural History, tells us that in digging, or rather blasting a well in Khan- deish, in the south of India, the workmen reached a moist rock, within which were Frogs; that two of them were re- leased out of a block of paved rock, and water was found there, at about thirty-five feet from the surface. Mr. Gosse adds : “ Wherever water percolates, Tadpoles may be con- veyed, as also air and infusoria for their support in their advanced stage of existence; and, no doubt, nature enables the Frog to secrete solvents, enabliiig it to increase its mansion ;](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28127420_0385.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
