A Toad Twenty Thousand Years Old.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 320, 28 November 1888, Page 3

A Toad Twenty Thousand Years Old.

Miss Amisua B. Ej>\vakds writes to the ' Times ' as follows : — The following extract *rora a letter which I have received from a gentleman well known for hi« archaeological and sciontilic tastes is so remarkable that I think it will be read with interest by your readers : — ' I suppose you have often heard of toads being tound in pieces ot rock, coal, &c. , when broken open by the workiuen'3 pick. I have to-day just seen one fcaken oat of a bed of clay on Tuesday hub, the 18th inst., in a new railway cutting at present being made here. It, is alive, bub very inactive and semi-torpid. It seems to have no bones, it is so limp, and its legs beud any way. It has two.beautiful cyefa, but does not seem to ?ee. Its mouth is sealed up ; but ifc seems to breathe very slightly through its nostrils, though how it breathed embedded in clay it is hard to say If it is 20,000 or 30,000 years since the glacial period when the clay was deposited this toad goe* a long way back into hoary antiquity, and was probably contemporaneous with the progenitors of Menes himself. Bud tho toad lives still.' I should add that the writer is iSlv T. LPatterson, of Gveenock, who will, J tru^t, forgive mo for giving publicity to uhis much of his letter.