November, 1918] 



The Ottawa Naturalist 



83 



province where I have collected in summer; that is, 

 Winnipeg, Lower Fort Garry, Selkirk, Shoal Lake, 

 Carberry and Boissevain. As, according to Preble, 

 it is distributed northwest to York Factory and Great 

 Bear Lake (N.A.F. No. 11, p. 134), it is to be 

 looked for in all parts of Manitoba. 



The crucifer is easily recognized by the dark St. 

 .Andrew's cross on its back; whereas, the seplentrion- 

 alis has only a number of long blotches or stripes. 



Though its piercmg "prreep prreep" from the 

 chilly pond, m early sprmgtime is familiar to all, 

 very few have seen the originator of the noise or 

 know that it is a tiny frog that makes this small 

 steam-whistle. While uttering it, his throat is blown 

 out like a transparent bladder and is nearly as big 

 as himself At Shoal Lake, in 190L I found them 

 still singing in the first week of July. The note is 

 more rattled than that of H. crucifer. The Peeper 

 is in full song about the first of May; they are very 

 rbundant; sometimes there are hundreds of them 

 singing in one pond, with their noses above water; 

 arid yet, any one who succeeds in seeing one while 



it sings may congratulate himself upon having 

 achieved a difficult e.xploit in woodcraft. 



A specimen that I took at Lower Fort Garry, 

 August 11, 1904, was a brilliant grass-green on all 

 its upper surface; but this. Dr. Stejneger said, was 

 merely an individual variation. 



COMMON TOAD, 

 Bufo hennophrys (Cope). 



The Common Toad is abundant everywhere from 

 Winnipeg and Shoal Lake to Brandon, from Boisse- 

 vain to Winnipegcsis, and, probably, throughout the 

 province. Its spring note is a soft trilling, uttered 

 about twice a minute and lasting about three seconds 

 each time. 



An interesting article on the homing power of the 

 Common Toad appears in Guide to Nature (Oct., 

 1918, p. 142). The writer, F. H. Sidney, mentions 

 instances of marked Toads returning to their home 

 places from distances of 3 to 10 miles, to which they 

 had been carried ; and doing this within a few days. 



AN OTTAWA BEACH OF THE CHAMPLAIN SEA. 



By E. M. Kindle. 



INTRODUCTION. 

 Before the advent of the science of geology men 

 lived in what was supposed to be a completed or 

 dead world. Except for the waggon ruts in the 

 roads and a few other minor alterations by man the 

 earth was believed to have been created, just as we 

 see it, a few thousand years ago. Historical geology 

 has enabled us to peer "far back into the night of 

 time." In place of the finished world of a few 

 generations ago we now recognize a constantly 

 changing world which has been tenanted by an 

 endless succession of plants and animals, each unlike 

 and a little in advance of those which preceded it. 

 The geography of to-day we now know to be no 

 more permanent than the cloud forms of yesterday. 

 Familiarity with geological concepts has contributed 

 enormously to mobility of mind and broad intellect- 

 ual hospitality. The man who can visualize clearly 

 the physical geography of eastern Canada as it was 

 some ten thousand years ago is prepared to compre- 

 hend as well as to meet and direct the great changes 

 incident to the evolution of the social, economic, and 

 political world in a way that his brother who still 

 lives in the finished world of yesterday cannot. It 

 is perhaps something more than a coincidence that 

 the science of geology and the principles of political 

 liberty first took root in England. 



In the light of these considerations it should be 

 clear to the non-professional reader that historical 

 geology has a broad cultural value which will well 

 repay one for the trouble of acquainting himself 

 with the salient features of his local geological 

 environment. There are few localities where the 

 recent chapters in the geological history of the con- 

 tinent can be more easily read than in the Ottawa 

 district. This is because the Ottawa and St. 

 Lawrence valleys were invaded by the sea at a very 

 recent period, geologically speaking, perhaps not 

 more than 10,000 years ago. 



AN ANCIENT SEA BEACH. 



The deposits of the latest marine invasion of the 

 Ottawa valley are of two distinct types, fine textured 

 blue clay and beds of sand. The sand deposits, 

 which are widely distributed throughout the Ottawa 

 river valley, represent, frequently and perhaps gen- 

 erally, deposits of an ancient sea shore. These 

 beaches are not of the type which the reader may 

 have seen at Cape Anne or some other rock bound 

 part of the exposed Atlantic coast where a ridge of 

 granity boulders six or eight feet high shows un- 

 mistakably the border of the sea and the prowess of 

 its waves. The beaches of the arm of the Cham- 

 plain or Pleistocene sea, which invaded the Ottawa 

 and St. Lawrence valleys shortly after the retreat 



