_Audi alteram partem._ Mr Plant of the Salford Museum tells us, both in sorrow and in anger, a story, doubtless more amusing to us who read it than to him, of his adventures among the toad-finders. When geologising in the neighbourhood of Chesterfield, a quarryman, whom he had invited to share a bottle of porter, informed him in confidence that Toads inclosed in stone were plentiful thereabout. "He said he had often found them, and that he knew a stone before it was broken that would contain a Toad; giving me long and circumstantial accounts of the whole phenomenon: and, to convince me of the truth of his statement, he took me to the quarry (a carboniferous sandstone) that I might see the stones out of which he said the Toads had been released. I examined the stones and the whole quarry very attentively, and listened to the emphatic testimony of other miners present. After complying in an agreeable manner to their remark that the day was warm, and the water of the quarry not much in favour, I made a simple proposal of this nature:--I promised to pay to any one of them the sum of twenty shillings for the next stone in which they found a Frog or Toad when the stone was broken in two. They should catch the Frog if he bolted out of the hole, replace him, and fit the stones together again, afterwards despatching it to me in that condition. I further promised to pay the sum of forty shillings to any one of them who should procure me a stone, unbroken, in which he considered a Toad or Frog was imprisoned, if, on breaking it myself, such turned out to be the case. These conditions were to remain in force for twelve months; and as the means of conveyance to my address, which I gave them, would occasion little or no trouble, the offer was readily accepted by the miners; who also, to express their confidence in soon being able to supply the order, proposed that it would be all safe if I advanced a little cash on account; which however I resolutely declined doing. And now what will the credulous believers in these 'Toads in stone' who read the _Zoologist_ say, when they learn that I visited the quarry twice during the twelve months, in order to fetch the Toads which never came by rail? I always found the men there blasting tons of new rock, splitting stones for every building purpose, yet dry-throated and sullen; for, alas! most unaccountably during that long twelve months they found plenty of holes--not Toad holes--in the sandstone, but the reptiles had been banished as effectually as ever they were from the Emerald Isle."[101] [Illustration: TOAD IN A HOLE.]