The Romance of Natural History Part 9

The Rev. Alfred Charles Smith, an excellent and genial naturalist, favours us with another case, introducing it incidentally in ill.u.s.tration 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 c.h.i.n.k 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 compa.s.sion 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 c.u.mulative. "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 ent.i.tled 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 ill.u.s.tration, 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 a.s.sistant 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, inst.i.tuted a series of careful experiments, which are thus narrated by himself:--"In one large block of coa.r.s.e 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 gla.s.s, and a circular slate to protect the gla.s.s: 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 gla.s.s and slate, cemented at the edge by clay. The object of the gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s was broken, and the animal within it dead, there was a large a.s.semblage of minute insects; and a similar a.s.semblage also on the outside of the gla.s.s of a third cell. In cell No. 9, a Toad which when put in weighed 988 grains, had increased to 1116 grains, and the gla.s.s 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.

"When they were first examined in December 1826, not only were all the small Toads dead, but the larger ones appeared much emaciated, with the two exceptions above mentioned; we have already stated that these probably owed their increased weight to the insects which had found access to the cells, and become their food.

"The death of every individual of every size in the smaller cells of compact sandstone, appears to have resulted from a deficiency in the supply of air, in consequence of the smallness of the cells, and the impermeable nature of the stone; the larger volume of air originally inclosed in the cells of the limestone, and the porous nature of the stone itself, (permeable as it is slowly by water, and probably by air,) seem to have favoured the duration of life to the animals inclosed in them without food.

"It should be noticed that there is a defect in these experiments, arising from the treatment of the twenty-four Toads before they were inclosed in the blocks of stone. They were shut up and buried on the 26th of November, but the greater number of them had been caught more than two months before that time, and had been imprisoned all together in a cuc.u.mber frame placed on common garden earth, where the supply of food to so many individuals was probably scanty, and their confinement unnatural, so that they were in an unhealthy and somewhat meagre state at the time of their imprisonment. We can therefore scarcely argue with certainty from the death of all these individuals within two years, as to the duration of life which might have been maintained had they retired spontaneously, and fallen into the torpor of their natural hibernation in good bodily condition.

"The results of our experiments amount to this: all the Toads, both large and small, inclosed in sandstone, and the small Toads in the limestone also, were dead at the end of thirteen months. Before the expiration of the second year all the large ones also were dead; these were examined several times during the second year through the gla.s.s covers of the cells, but without removing them to admit air; they appeared always awake, with their eyes open, and never in a state of torpor, their meagreness increasing at each interval in which they were examined, until at length they were found dead; those two also which had gained an accession of weight at the end of the first year, and were then carefully closed up again, were emaciated and dead before the expiration of the second year.

"At the same time that these Toads were inclosed in stone, four other Toads of middling size were inclosed in three holes, cut for this purpose on the north side of the trunk of an apple-tree; two being placed in the largest cell, and each of the others in a single cell.

The cells were nearly circular, about five inches deep and three inches in diameter; they were carefully closed up with a plug of wood, so as to exclude access of insects, and apparently were air-tight; when examined at the end of a year, every one of the Toads was dead, and their bodies were decayed.

"From the fatal result of the experiments made in the small cells cut in the apple-tree and the block of compact sandstone, it seems to follow that Toads cannot live a year excluded totally from atmospheric air; and, from the experiments in the larger cells within the block of oolitic limestone, it seems also probable that they cannot survive two years entirely excluded from food; we may therefore conclude that there is a want of sufficiently minute and accurate observation in those so frequently recorded cases, where Toads are said to be found alive within blocks of stone and wood, in cavities that had no communication whatever with the external air. The fact of my two Toads having increased in weight at the end of the year, notwithstanding the care that was taken to inclose them perfectly by a luting of clay, shews how very small an aperture will admit of insects sufficient to maintain life. In the cell No. 5, where the gla.s.s was slightly cracked, the communication though small was obvious, but in the cell No. 9, where the gla.s.s cover remained entire, and where it appears certain, from the increased weight of the inclosed animal, that insects must have found admission, we have an example of these minute animals finding their way into a cell to which great care had been taken to prevent any possibility of access.

"Admitting, then, that Toads are occasionally found in cavities of wood and stone with which there is no communication sufficiently large to allow the ingress and egress of the animal inclosed in them, we may, I think, find a solution of such phenomena in the habits of these reptiles, and of the insects which form their food. The first effort of the young Toad, as soon as it has left its tadpole state and emerged from the water, is to seek shelter in holes and crevices of rocks and trees. An individual which, when young, may have thus entered a cavity by some very narrow aperture, would find abundance of food by catching insects, which, like itself, seek shelter within such cavities; and may soon have increased so much in bulk as to render it impossible to get out again through the narrow aperture at which it entered. A small hole of this kind is very likely to be overlooked by common workmen, who are the only people whose operations on stone and wood disclose cavities in the interior of such substances.

"In the case of Toads, Snakes, and Lizards, that occasionally issue from stones that are broken in a quarry, or in sinking wells, and sometimes even from strata of coal at the bottom of a coal-mine, the evidence is never perfect to shew that the reptiles were entirely inclosed in solid rock. No examination is ever made until the reptile is first discovered by the breaking of the ma.s.s in which it was contained, and then it is too late to ascertain, without carefully replacing every fragment, (and in no case that I have seen reported has this ever been done,) whether or not there was any hole or crevice by which the animal may have entered the cavity from which it was extracted. Without previous examination it is almost impossible to prove that there was no such communication. In the case of rocks near the surface of the earth, and in stone quarries, reptiles find ready admission to holes and fissures.

We have a notorious example of this kind in the Lizard found in a chalk-pit, and brought alive to the late Dr Clark. In the case also of wells and coal-pits, a reptile that had fallen down the well or shaft, and survived its fall, would seek its natural retreat in the first hole or crevice it could find, and the miner dislodging it from this cavity, to which his previous attention had not been called, might in ignorance conclude that the animal was coeval with the stone from which he had extracted it.

"It remains only to consider the case (of which I know not any authenticated example) of Toads that have been said to be found in cavities within blocks of limestone, to which, on careful examination, no access whatever could be discovered, and where the animal was absolutely and entirely closed up with stone. Should any such case ever have existed, it is probable that the communication between this cavity and the external surface had been closed up by stalact.i.tic incrustation, after the animal had become too large to make its escape. A similar explanation may be offered of the much more probable case of a live Toad being entirely surrounded with solid wood. In each case, the animal would have continued to increase in bulk so long as the smallest aperture remained by which air and insects could find admission; it would probably become torpid as soon as this aperture was entirely closed by the acc.u.mulation of stalact.i.te or the growth of wood. But it still remains to be ascertained how long this state of torpor may continue under total exclusion from food and from external air: and, although the experiments above recorded shew that life did not extend two years in the case of any one of the individuals which formed the subjects of them, yet, for reasons which have been specified, they are not decisive to shew that a state of torpor, or suspended animation, may not be endured for a much longer time by Toads that are healthy and well fed up to the moment when they are finally cut off from food, and from all direct access of atmospheric air.

"The common experiment of burying a Toad in a flower-pot covered with a tile, is of no value unless the cover be carefully luted to the pot, and the hole at the bottom of the pot also closed, so as to exclude all possible access of air, earthworms, and insects. I have heard of two or three experiments of this kind, in which these precautions have not been taken, and in which at the end of a year the Toads have been found alive and well.

"Besides the Toads inclosed in wood and stone, four others were placed each in a small basin of plaster of Paris, four inches deep and five inches in diameter, having a cover of the same material carefully luted round with clay; these were buried at the same time and in the same place with the blocks of stone, and on being examined at the same time with them in December 1826, two of the Toads were dead, the other two alive, but much emaciated. We can only collect from this experiment, that a thin plate of plaster of Paris is permeable to air in a sufficient degree to maintain the life of a Toad for thirteen months.

"In the 19th Vol., No. I, p. 167, of _Sillimans American Journal of Science and Arts_, David Thomas, Esq. has published some observations on Frogs and Toads in stone and solid earth, enumerating several authentic and well-attested cases. These, however, amount to no more than a repet.i.tion of the facts so often stated and admitted to be true, viz., that torpid reptiles occur in cavities of stone, and at the depth of many feet in soil and earth; but they state not anything to disprove the possibility of a small aperture, by which these cavities may have had communication with the external surface, and insects have been admitted.

"The attention of the discoverer is always directed more to the Toad than to the minutiae of the state of the cavity in which it was contained."

The importance of these experiments, the care with which they were inst.i.tuted, the deserved reputation of the experimenter, and the philosophic character of his inferences, will, I trust, apologise for the extent of this quotation. I do not think, however, that the question is settled by them; and I will venture to make one or two comments on the facts and on the observations.

Dr Buckland allows that the circ.u.mstances of the incarceration of his Toads were not natural. This seems to me an element of more importance than he attributes to it. They were shut up while in active life, after having been confined for two months on scanty food;--"So that they were in an _unhealthy and somewhat meagre_ state at the time of their imprisonment." We do not know what conditions, what natural provisions precede torpidity and are essential to it; but possibly there are some, which in these cases were compulsorily precluded by human interference.

It is stated that the animals that survived to the second year were always found awake when examined,--"_never in a state of torpor_." But Toads that had hid themselves would have been torpid during the winter months; and thus we have a sufficient proof that a natural condition of body had been by some means prevented. The experiment would be much more fair to the Toad, and much more conclusive to me, if the animal were inclosed during the depth of its winter-sleep, care being taken to handle it as little as possible.

As it was, however, _most of the Toads_ inclosed in the limestone _survived upwards of thirteen months_. This surely is a very remarkable fact. Take the case of No. 9. Here was a Toad, nearly full grown, which had been shut up in a stone cell, covered with a plate of gla.s.s carefully luted down all round, so as to exclude air, buried under three feet of earth, so as to exclude the smallest gleam of light; yet, at the expiration of thirteen months, the cell being examined in winter, when normally all Toads ought to be sound asleep, this Toad was wide awake, not in the least emaciated, but so thriving in its strange dungeon as actually to have made 128 grains of fles.h.!.+ to have actually increased in weight at the rate of 12-1/2 per cent.!

Dr Buckland says, "It is probable there was some aperture in the luting by which small insects found admission." But this is altogether a _pet.i.tio principii_: it absolutely begs the question at issue. Are not these insects entirely gratuitous? The luting was, of course, carefully laid on: there could be no drying to cause contraction, buried as it was in the earth; the gla.s.s was uninjured; no orifice was detected; and yet, forsooth, it must be a.s.sumed that "small insects found admission." Then, too, consider the problem. It is not the possibility that a microscopically minute insect or two may have managed in some inscrutable way to insinuate themselves, but insects sufficient to support this large Toad for thirteen months, and to make it at the end of that time 128 grains heavier than it was when first inclosed! There is the fact, as stated by this careful observer; and I am sure his hypothesis of intrusive insects will not account for it.

I might make similar remarks on No. 5. The gla.s.s was "_slightly_ cracked." No insects were discovered in it; nor is any perceptible orifice alluded to; yet this Toad had increased from 1185 grains to 1265 grains. The "_slight_ crack" in the gla.s.s makes this example less remarkable at first sight than the other; but in reality it is equally inscrutable. Insects, however minute, do not pa.s.s through gla.s.s merely cracked; but the requirement is the admission of insects enough to make an increase of flesh of 80 grains' weight, besides maintaining the waste of the Toad during thirteen months. Where, in each case, was the excrement corresponding to such an augmentation? An insect-diet, as every naturalist knows, leaves a very considerable residuum of indigestible, incorruptible, chitinous matter: the f{oe}cal remains of an insect-diet sufficient to keep an adult Toad in condition for thirteen months, and leave him 128 grains heavier than at first, would form no inconsiderable or inconspicuous ma.s.s. Yet the silence of the observer on so conclusive an evidence proves that it was utterly wanting.

The Toads which survived longest were the largest specimens. Perhaps it requires a condition of peculiar vigour to bear the incarceration. Even these were all dead before two years had elapsed. But then it must be remembered that they had been disturbed: they had been taken out, handled, and weighed, and replaced; and during the second year they had been examined "several times." Air, it is true, was not admitted in these later examinations; but _light was_; and it may be that the absence of all external stimulus (and light is a potent one) is indispensable to the prolongation of vitality under conditions so abnormal.

No one supposes that incarceration in solid rock is an ordinary event in the life of even a Toad. However it occur,--granting that it may occur,--it must surely be a rare accident happening to an individual here and there, from which millions of Toads are exempt. We may reasonably suppose, too, that not one in a hundred so accidentally incarcerated would survive, the accident in the majority of cases proving fatal. If we bear in mind these not unreasonable presumptions, we shall not hastily decide that all the recorded discoveries of Toads immured are proved false and impossible, because we have not succeeded in finding a case of longevity out of four-and-twenty Toads, many of them little ones, which we took and violently immured at our pleasure.

To my own mind these interesting experiments are far more corroborative than contradictory of the popular belief. The amazing fact remains, that an adult vertebrate air-breathing animal can certainly live, and increase in size, shut up in a stone cell, debarred from light and air and food, for a period between one and two years! What have we parallel to this in the whole range of natural history? _C'est le premier pas qui coute._ After the first year has pa.s.sed so auspiciously, why may not a second? a third? and so indefinitely--under circ.u.mstances peculiarly favouring? It is by no means certain that there are not such favouring circ.u.mstances, because we cannot precisely predicate what they are. And if we admit the reported cases to be--only a few of them--true, we cannot evade the conclusion, that the longevity of these imprisoned Toads must be immense, incalculable. For a Toad that emerges when a block of stone is split up, from a matrix that fits (say somewhat roughly, if you please) its form and size, must have been there ever since the stone was in a soft state, how long soever that may have been. Nor does it in the least affect the question, that there may have been some minute crack in the matrix through which insects, sufficient to support life, entered. This circ.u.mstance, I say, if satisfactorily proved, would not touch the question of time. And surely it is a marvel of colossal magnitude that a vertebrate animal should have maintained its life shut up in a ma.s.s of stone ever since the deposition of the matter in a solid form, even though we be able to eliminate from it the element of total abstinence during the entire period.

But facts are upon record which prove the possibility of Toads surviving a protracted incarceration, effected by man, and therefore without their will. In 1809, on opening a gap in a wall at Bamborough, in Northumberland, for the pa.s.sage of carts, a Toad, which had been incarcerated in the centre of a wall, was found alive, and set at liberty. A mason, named George Wilson, when building this wall, sixteen years before, had wantonly immured the animal, in a close cavity formed of lime and stone, just sufficient to contain it, and which he plastered so closely as seemingly to prevent the admission of air. When discovered, it seemed at first, as must naturally be supposed, in a very torpid state; but it soon recovered animation and activity, and, as if sensible of the blessings of freedom, made its way to a collection of stones, and disappeared.[107]

Mr F. W. L. Ross of Broadway House, near Topsham, an acute and experienced naturalist, narrates the following circ.u.mstances:--"In the year 1821, I was residing in the country, and in my court-yard was a set of stone steps for mounting on horseback. These being useless to me, I desired they might be removed. On taking them down, the lowest step, a coa.r.s.e red conglomerate, measuring about three feet in length, ten inches in depth, and about fourteen in width, was raised by a heavy bar.

It had been well bedded in mortar, in which, while soft, a Toad had been evidently placed, as there was no appearance of any way by which it could have found ingress or egress, the mould or cast being as perfect as if taken in plaster. On the removal of the stone, the Toad remained torpid for a few minutes, when it seemed to revive, and then crept out.

From the owners of the property I ascertained that the steps had been placed there forty-five years before, and, to the best of their knowledge, had never been moved.

"The second account is from a clergyman, and originated in my informing him of the above. He caused a pit to be dug in his garden, six feet deep; at the bottom was laid a slate, on which a full-sized Toad was placed, with an inverted flower-pot over it. The hole and edges were well luted with clay; the pit was then filled in, and on that day twelve months reopened, when the Toad was found alive, and as well as when inclosed in its living tomb. If, therefore, it could exist in such a state for twelve months, it is not impossible that it might do so for a much longer period."[108]

These curious facts derive confirmation and augmented interest from some apparently parallel conditions observed of other animals, widely removed in the organic scale from the Reptilia, and that on both sides.

Some glimpses of an indefinitely protracted torpidity in Wasps are given to us in a communication from an eminent entomologist, Mr G. Wailes of Newcastle, to the Entomological Society of London, and published in their "Proceedings" of March 5, 1860. These Rip Van Winkles of the insect race choose, it seems, the tops of loftiest mountains for going to their long sleep. Who knows what might be found if a clever insect-hunter were to go stone-turning on the peaks of Ararat? Read the following, young enterprising entomologists! and set out.

"It is very evident that we have a great deal yet to learn about the Social Wasps, and therefore the following remarks as to _Vespa vulgaris_ may be interesting. Ever since 1829 I have, at intervals, searched the summit of Skiddaw (3022 feet) for specimens of _Leistus monta.n.u.s_, and on every occasion have taken out from underneath the loose fragments of the slate perfectly torpid females of this Wasp, with the wings, legs, antennae, &c., precisely in the state in which we find them during winter in the lower lands. Not unfrequently I have met with dead specimens which seemed to have perished in the same dormant state, and been there for a year or two at least. Mr Smith, in his catalogue of the British Vespadae, under this species, states that Mr Wollaston found the female abundant under stones on the extreme summit of Gribon Oernant, near Llangollen, in September 1854, adding, 'probably hybernating for the winter,' but had evidently forgotten my writing to him on the subject.

My visits to the mountain have extended from the latter end of June to the latter end of August, and therefore it necessarily follows that either these specimens of the female Wasp were those of the previous year, or that this s.e.x appears much earlier in the season than has. .h.i.therto been supposed. But in either case the question arises, why are they torpid during these the hottest months of the year? It is quite true that the temperature of the alt.i.tude is below that of the plains, especially during the night, and I have myself been enveloped in falling sleet and snow more than once, both in June and August, though, as a rule, the c.u.mberland mountains seldom have a thick covering of snow, and often only a few inches once or twice in the winter. Still, the temperature of ordinary mountains always approaches that of the plains in summer, and, one would have expected, was in Britain at least sufficiently high to rouse these Wasps in their winter quarters, when every other insect under the same stones was active and stirring, and the air so warm and bright that _Larentia salicata_ and _Crambus furcatillus_ were sporting in the mid-day sun above them. Such, however, was not the case, and when turned out of their snug, dry quarters, they allowed themselves to be handled and put into pill-boxes just as they do in winter. We may therefore ask, when are these sleepers to awake? for as the ground temperature reaches its maximum during the months in which I have met with them, and Mr Wollaston has found them in a similar state in September, when a declining temperature has set in, we must conclude that for that year all prospect of their subsequent issue from their retreats through the influence of heat is barred. Can this be called hybernation, as it is usually understood? Or is there some other cause of torpidity besides mere cold? Or are we to conclude that when once put to sleep in these lofty regions, they wake no more unless kindly removed into a milder clime by a stray entomologist, when, as I have always noticed, they become as active as those of the warm lowlands?"[109]

Mr Westwood, in the conversation that ensued on this communication, suggested that these female Wasps had been the founders of colonies in the preceding spring, and, after performing their maternal duties, had retired to die in the situations in which they were found by Mr Wailes.

But with all due deference to so great an authority, is not this another example of those "explanations" which are thrown off without a due consideration of the exigencies of the case in hand--explanations which really explain nothing? For though this hypothesis might account for Wasps found under such conditions in June, it will not do for the September findings. Insects that had performed the end of their existence and had retired to die in June, would not live through July and August, and be found alive in September. Besides, Mr Wailes distinctly affirms, that _they always become active_ when removed to a milder clime, which is proof positive that they had not retired to die.

Mr Smith's hypothesis, that they are "probably hybernating for the winter," will not account for their torpidity in June and July. Mr Westwood's hypothesis, that they are moribund individuals after their spring work, will not explain their vitality till September, and their revivification when removed.

But these are insects; and the difference between vertebrate and invertebrate life is so vast that, after all, the possibilities of the latter may not have much bearing on those of the former. What, then, shall we say to an indefinite prolongation of life under like dreary conditions in--_Bats_? _Bats_, which are true vertebrata; and no amphibia grovelling at the bottom of the vertebrate ladder, where the dim flame of spinal life is just glimmering in the socket, but _Mammalia_, and those of nearly the highest type;--_Bats_, which Linnaeus a.s.sociated with _h.o.m.o sapiens_ himself in his first Order _Primates_!

Can _these_ live for years shut up from light and food and air? these great-chested, well-lunged, warm-blooded, aerial quadrupeds?

"Impossible! I would not believe it, if----" Stay! make no rash vows; but read, weigh, and judge. Remember,--both the following statements are by clergymen, each of whom is a well-known, careful, experienced naturalist.

"A very curious instance," says Mr Pemberton Bartlett, "of the great length of time that a Bat can remain in a state of torpidity, came under my notice about three weeks since; and as I believe instances of the kind are but rarely observed, perhaps an account of the facts of the case may not prove uninteresting. Upon opening a vault in Bishopsbourne church, the bricklayer observed a large Bat clinging to the wall.

Thinking it a curious thing to find a Bat in a vault which he knew had not been opened for twenty years, in the evening he sent it to me by his boy, who, when he arrived at the door, was tempted to open the basket to look at the inmate, when most unfortunately it made its escape, and flitted into a leaden spout which was placed against the house, from whence I was unable to recover it. Upon learning the particulars of its discovery, I made a careful search about the vault, but was unable to trace any hole or crack through which the smallest Bat could have crept.

The bricklayer also informed me that there was no place where a Bat could have entered, in the part where he opened the vault, as the entrance was bricked up, and over the steps was a slab which fitted close. If, indeed, it had been possible for a Bat to have got between this, the brickwork at the entrance would most effectually have prevented it from finding an asylum in the vault. The natural inference therefore is, that the Bat must have got into the vault when it was last opened, and consequently had been entombed since the year 1823! It was most unfortunate that I was unable to decide what species it was; but, from the bricklayer's description, I think it must have been _Vespertilio Pipistrellus_. When first taken out of the vault it was in a torpid state, but the effects of the air may be imagined from its taking the first opportunity to escape in the evening; it flew, however, far more 'leaden winged' than ever bats are wont to fly, which was by no means marvellous, when we consider it had been out of practice for twenty-one years."[110]

The next account, by the Rev. A. C. Smith, of Yatesbury Rectory, Calne, is one of peculiar interest. The narrator actually witnessed the discovery. His investigation was pursued with the cautious care, and his statement is made with the precision, which belong to science; and the details are so full, and his remarks so appropriate, that though the story is somewhat long, I cannot bring myself to abridge it. It bears date, Feb. 18, 1854. Of course, the reader will note how these two narratives yield each other mutual corroboration.

"While effecting some repairs in the pavement of the aisle of my church, a short time since, the masons found it necessary to remove some bricks from the solid wall of an adjacent vault, in order the better to adjust an iron bar intended to support the superinc.u.mbent flagstone. It seems that one or two bricks being removed, and several large and handsome coffins being exposed to view, curiosity tempted one of the workmen to reach his hand in with a lighted candle, in order to see the names and dates on the coffins; the result of which investigation shewed that the last coffin was placed there in 1748. During this search I entered the church, just in time to witness the extreme surprise, and the no little consternation, of the man, whose hand had suddenly come in contact with a Bat, suspended from the roof of the vault. The Bat was soon brought to light; and, in its half-torpid state, placed in my hand. We then proceeded to make a very minute examination of this vault with a lighted candle, in order to discover, if possible, by what means the Bat could have penetrated to its resting-place: but, although our search was very careful and long continued, we failed to discover the smallest crack or crevice in which a pin could be thrust. The roof was an arch of brick, surmounted by flagstones; the sides were solid masonry, bearing no appearance internally of decay; and the position of the vault was very near the centre of the church: so that I was much puzzled to account for the occurrence of the Bat in a place apparently hermetically sealed for above a hundred years; and knew not how to combat the opinion of the workmen, that it must have been entombed there alive since the year 1748.

"I now proceeded to inst.i.tute inquiries regarding the vault in which the Bat was found. The marble monument above, recorded the names of an old Wilts.h.i.+re family long since extinct in these parts, and the dates of the three coffins below, corroborating the statement of the bra.s.s plate, that the individual last buried died A.D. 1748. Several old men in the parish remembered an adjacent vault being opened, when they were boys, nearly sixty years since: but all positively denied that the vault in question had ever been opened in their lives: and one, a very old man, formerly clerk, and whose then residence ab.u.t.ted on the churchyard, was very emphatic on this point. So that I am constrained to believe that the vault has remained untouched since it received its last occupant, a hundred and six years ago: and I am the more convinced of this from the excessive freshness of the last coffin, the bra.s.s plate and nails of which are as bright, and its whole appearance as new, as if it had been placed there but yesterday, which would not have been the case had the external air been admitted at any time since the vault was closed.