Morning journal and courier., 1892-05-19
Treasured Up In Trees.

II
 In some strangely shaped fossil trees SC
 cidentally dug out vf a stone quarry wer,
 found treasured up the petrihed-lookins
 bodies of reptiles, binds. bats and sucl
 small deer-which hsd thus been honored by preservation in massive msusoleums. When cutting open the trunk of an elm | live toad was fonnd concealed aboui
 three feet from the root. It skipped away very alertly, yet, we are told, no tree wA.
 more sound, nor could any aperture b,
 discovered through which the little cap
 tive could have penetrated. It is sup
 posed that the spawn from which 1t origi
 mated must have accidentally been treas
 ured up in the tree from the first moment of its vegetation.
 In like manner, while some men wer. squaring the trunk of an oak they had inst felled, they suddenly started back in as tonishment on seeing & hideous toad, about the size of large bullets egg, encrusied in the tree, four inches in from the bark and fifteen feet from the root. Though msngled by the axe, the creature still moved, but 1t appeared old, thin and de. crepit- As in other cases, a careful exam ination revealed no entrance to its prison house.
 Similarly, no opening could be discov- cred through which an enormous beetle came to be enclosed in a solid log of wood. which was discovered in a ships hold in Portsmouth.
 Some extraordinary finds. have at times been made within the trunks of trees. A woodman, for instance, when engaged in splitting timber for rail posts, in a wood in Scotland, discovered in the center of 6
 large wild cherry tree a living bat of 8 bright scarle. color, which he foolishly sl-
 lowed to escape, from superstitious fears that it was ''being not of this world. " The tree showed a small cavity in the cen ter, where the bat was enclosed, but it was perfectly sound and solid on each side. A natural curiosity turned up in a some what similar manner. This was the nest aud skeleton of bird, embedded in 8 piece of beechwood which seemed to be quite sound all around the cavity, but the timber being sawn up, the next, with the bony framework of the bird sitting upon it, was found. The nest was partly built of mud, in a hollow probably formed
 through the looping of of branch, the outside of which became afterwards grown over, though it is difficult to imagine bow bird could thus become imprisoned.
 In the recesses of an old tree somebody came across the apparently mummifed body of large gray cat. It appeared to have been quite fattened by some unto ward accident, for, seemingly, in its dying agonies, the poor animal had driven its powerful eye teeth quite through a thick and solid brauch of wood.
 At the felling of an ancient hollow oak in German forest. when the tree crashed to the ground it disclosed human skele- ton in excellent preservation. From his long boots, powder-hask and other arti- cles found: he appeared to have been a
 hunter, and it was concluded that the un-
 fortunate man, in climbing the tree in pur.
 suit of some wounded bird or animal, had slipped into the hollow trunk, had been unable to extricate himself, and co had perished missrably of starvation in his ready prepared oak coffin.