Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/270

258 wine shipped to Europe, became lively as soon as they were exposed to the air. Frozen caterpillars are sometimes revived when thawed out. That May-bugs can be restored to life after they have been drowned has been proved by Prof. Balbiani, of the College de France, in conclusive experiments. He restored many by drying them in the sun after he had kept them immersed for twenty-four hours, two days, and even five days. In another experiment a stag-beetle, put under alcohol for a half-hour and then dried, was still in motion after three days.

Going higher up in the animal series eggs, which are analogous to the seeds of plants, present a remarkable example of retarded life. One of the most interesting features about them is the independence of their vitality, which persists even when the individual that has produced them, and within whose organism they are still contained, has ceased to live. This fact has been recognized in pisciculture, where artificial fecundation has been successful with eggs taken from dead fish.

The persistence of life in frogs is very long. Spallanzani preserved some frogs in a mass of snow for two years. They became dry, stiff, and almost friable, but a gradual heat brought them back to life. Vulpian observed a return of life in frogs and salamanders that had been poisoned with curare and nicotine. In both cases the animals in question had been for several days in the condition of cadavers. Toads have been shut up in blocks of plaster, and then, having been deprived of all air except what may penetrate through the material, and of all sources of food, resuscitated several years afterward. This question presents one of the most curious problems that biological science has been called on to explain. The longevity and vital resistance of toads are surprising. Besides the experiments we have cited, Nature sometimes presents some already made, and vastly more astonishing. Toads are said to have been found in rocks. Such cases are rare, but it would be as unreasonable to doubt them as to believe in some of the miraculous explanations that have been made of the matter. The phenomenon is marvelous, it is true, but it is supported by evidence that we are not able to contest; and skepticism, which is incompatible with science, will have to disappear if rigorous observation shall confirm it. The toad was observed, in one case, in the stone itself, and before, recovering from its long lethargy, it had made any motion. One of these toads was presented to an academy, with the stone which had served it as a coffin or habitation, and it was ascertained that the cavity seemed to correspond exactly with the dimensions and form of the animal. It is remarkable that these toad-stones are very hard and not at all porous, and show no signs of fissure. The mind, completely baffled in the presence of the fact, is equally