June. 1896. THE MIDWIFE TOAD. 393 



named " Glockenunke (Bell-frog) Rana campaiiisona" on account of its 

 note. A person who does not know the creatures will not believe 

 that it is they that can give forth such lovely tones. 



At the call of the male the little female comes out. When a pair 

 are met, the male clasps the female with his forelegs in such a way 

 that, with the aid of the hindlegs, the egg-cord is drawn out of the 

 cloaca of the female ; thereupon the male fertihses the eggs and 

 winds the cord, containing about 200 eggs, in the shape of an 8 round 

 its hindlegs, putting a leg in each loop of the 8. Now the pair let go; 

 the female has done its duty and is free, while the male alone under- 

 takes the care for the future. With this " sweet " burden it hops and 

 creeps about, seeks food, and pipes its note to its comrade. The 

 burden does not seem to inconvenience the little creature in the least. 

 About three weeks later it jumps all at once into the water, struggles 

 out of the egg-cord, and begins again its terrestrial existence. So 

 soon as the eggs reach the water, their tense covering softens, and, 

 through the movements of the buried but visible creature within, it 

 splits, and the young larva disports itself gaily in the new element, its 

 second home, till, grown into a toad, it also seeks the land, to live by 

 day in a hole, and to creep out at night in search of a fat slug, or 

 some other dainty morsel. To my personal knowledge, all tadpoles 

 winter in the water, so that the creatures are never fully developed in 

 one summer. They may also be completely frozen without any 

 injurious effects. This I have seen, not only during the severe winter 

 on my daily walks to the spots where they are found, but also 

 among the twenty larvae which I have harboured since last July in 

 my aquarium. During the severe cold of last February I moved 

 from Barmen to Miinster. My aquarium was for seventy-two hours 

 in a furniture van, with the result that the water in it was frozen 

 through and through, and arrived here a solid piece of ice, in which 

 the beetles, gold-fish, and Alytes larvae could be seen lying. When 

 brought into a warm room the ice took seventy-two hours to melt ; 

 one larva after another got free and hurried merrily about. They are 

 still all living and are beginning to develop into adults. I may men- 

 tion that the imprisonn-ient in the ice was also not detrimental to the 

 water-beetles and goldfish, but all my toads, which made the same 

 journey in a terrarium, were frozen to death. 



The larvae subsist on carrion and the corpses of any animals in 

 the water : thus they gnaw a frog or a triton to the bone. They lick 

 the plants and slide their mouth against the stones and glass walls,, 

 whence one may conclude that they also like the. delicate slime 

 as food. In colour the larvae are like the adults — olive-green^ 

 mixed with brown — but there are some which shade into a yellow. 

 The belly is yellowish-white towards the head, verging towards the 

 anus into rose, with which the throat also is speckled. The back is 

 covered with warts, which are especially prominent at the junction of 

 the belly and the back. The backs of the larvae are quite smooth. 



2 F 



