Recently, as David Virtue, a mason in Scotland, was dressing a heavy
barley millstone from a large block, after cutting away a part, he
found a lizard of this species imbedded in the stone. It was about an
inch and a quarter long, of a brownish-yellow color, and had a round
head, with bright, sparkling, projecting eyes. When first found, it was
apparently dead; but after being about five minutes exposed to the air,
it showed signs of life. It soon became lively, and ran about with much
celerity; and about half an hour after the discovery, was brushed off
the stone, and killed. When found, it was coiled up in a round cavity
of its own form, being an exact impression of the animal. There were
about fourteen feet of earth above the rock, and the block in which the
lizard was found was seven or eight feet in the rock; so that the whole
depth of the animal from the surface was twenty-one or twenty-two feet.
The stone had no fissure, was quite hard, and one of the best which is
got from the quarry of Cullaloe; the stone is reckoned one of the
hardest in Scotland.