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. [Illustration] ON A PIECE OF CHALK _A LECTURE TO WORKING MEN_. (Delivered in England.) BY T.H. HUXLEY. [Illustration: A CHALK CLIFF.] If a well were to be sunk at our feet in the midst of the city of Norwich, the diggers would very soon find themselves at work in that white substance almost too soft to be called rock, with which we are all familiar as "chalk."