Always frogs a few months old.
It sounds positive, but if there be such reports they are somewhere out
of my range of reading.
But tadpoles would be more likely to fall from the sky than would
frogs, little or big, if such falls be attributed to whirlwinds; and
more likely to fall from the Super-Sargasso Sea if, though very
tentatively and provisionally, we accept the Super-Sargasso Sea.
Before we take up an especial expression upon the fall of immature and
larval forms of life to this earth, and the necessity then of conceiving
of some factor besides mere stationariness or suspension or stagnation,
there are other data that are similar to data of falls of fishes.
_Science Gossip_, 1886-238:
That small snails, of a land species, had fallen near Redruth, Cornwall,
July 8, 1886, "during a heavy thunderstorm": roads and fields strewn
with them, so that they were gathered up by the hatful: none seen to
fall by the writer of this account: snails said to be "quite different
to any previously known in this district."
But, upon page 282, we have better orthodoxy. Another correspondent
writes that he had heard of the supposed fall of snails: that he had
supposed that all such stories had gone the way of witch stories; that,
to his astonishment, he had read an account of this absurd story in a
local newspaper of "great and deserved repute."
"I thought I should for once like to trace the origin of one of these
fabulous tales."
Our own acceptance is that justice cannot be in an intermediate
existence, in which there can be approximation only to justice or to
injustice; that to be fair is to have no opinion at all; that to be
honest is to be uninterested; that to investigate is to admit prejudice;
that nobody has ever really investigated anything, but has always sought
positively to prove or to disprove something that was conceived of, or
suspected, in advance.
"As I suspected," says this correspondent, "I found that the snails were
of a familiar land-species"--that they had been upon the ground "in the
first place."
He found that the snails had appeared after the rain: that "astonished
rustics had jumped to the conclusion that they had fallen."
He met one person who said that he had seen the snails fall.
"This was his error," says the investigator.
In the _Philosophical Magazine_, 58-310, there is an account of snails
said to have fallen at Bristol in a field of three acres, in such
quantities that they were shoveled up. It is said that the snails "may
be considered as a local species." Upon page 457, another correspondent
says that the numbers had been exaggerated, and that in his opinion they
had been upon the ground in the first place. But that there had been
some unusual condition aloft comes out in his observation upon "the
curious azure-blue appearance of the sun, at the time."
_Nature_, 47-278:
That, according to _Das Wetter_, December, 1892, upon Aug. 9, 1892, a
yellow cloud appeared over Paderborn, Germany. From this cloud, fell a
torrential rain, in which were hundreds of mussels. There is no mention
of whatever may have been upon the ground in the first place, nor of a
whirlwind.
Lizards--said to have fallen on the sidewalks of Montreal, Canada, Dec.
28, 1857. (_Notes and Queries_, 8-6-104.)
In the _Scientific American_, 3-112, a correspondent writes, from South
Granville, N.Y., that, during a heavy shower, July 3, 1860, he heard a
peculiar sound at his feet, and looking down, saw a snake lying as if
stunned by a fall. It then came to life. Gray snake, about a foot long.
These data have any meaning or lack of meaning or degree of damnation
you please: but, in the matter of the fall that occurred at Memphis,
Tennessee, occur some strong significances. Our quasi-reasoning upon
this subject applies to all segregations so far considered.
_Monthly Weather Review_, Jan. 15, 1877:
That, in Memphis, Tenn., Jan. 15, 1877, rather strictly localized, or
"in a space of two blocks," and after a violent storm in which the rain
"fell in torrents," snakes were found. They were crawling on sidewalks,
in yards, and in streets, and in masses--but "none were found on roofs
or any other elevation above ground" and "none were seen to fall."
If you prefer to believe that the snakes had always been there, or had
been upon the ground in the first place, and that it was only that
something occurred to call special attention to them, in the streets of
Memphis, Jan. 15, 1877--why, that's sensible: that's the common sense
that has been against us from the first.
It is not said whether the snakes were of a known species or not, but
that "when first seen, they were of a dark brown, almost black."
Blacksnakes, I suppose.
If we accept that these snakes did fall, even though not seen to fall by
all the persons who were out sight-seeing in a violent storm, and had
not been in the streets crawling loose or in thick tangled masses, in
the first place:
If we try to accept that these snakes had been raised from some other
part of this earth's surface in a whirlwind: