FIELD BOOK OF PONDS AND STREAMS 



accident, so closely do they match the color of leaves. They 

 are very much at home about houses, even climbing into 

 veranda flower boxes, and they can live comfortably in a glass- 

 covered fernery if the air is kept damp and they are occasional- 

 ly fed with small worms and insects. 



Fig. 301. — Tree toad with its body pressed against 

 the glass side of a fernery. 



Breeding habits. — By the last of April or first of May tree 

 toads have come out of their winter hiding places on land and 

 are on their way to their breeding ponds. By the middle of 

 May their high resonant voices are raised in full chorus ; they 

 begin calling in the early afternoon, especially on warm, moist 

 days, and keep it up well into the night. The gnome-like 

 males sitting on the lily pads with their vocal sacs ballooned 

 out into pearly translucent globes will go on singing in the 

 full flare of a flashlight (Fig. 300). Probably they come to 

 the ponds before the females. In a week's thorough search 

 during the earliest part of the breeding season, Wright found 

 males each evening, but never saw any females. Tree toads 

 usually mate at night. By the first of June they begin to 

 lay their light brownish eggs which are attached in small 

 groups to plant stems, always at or near the surface of the 

 water. 



Life history. — The scarlet-tailed tadpoles grow very rapidly, 



374 



