SAND DUNES AND SALT MARSHES 



On some desert sands the tracks of many 

 reptiles are fomid, but in these northern sea- 

 shore dunes it is rare that one comes upon 

 the winding track of a snake. A member of 

 the group of batrachians, the common or gar- 

 den toad, here, however, so sandy in color as 

 to deserve the name of dune-toad, leaves his 

 tracks everywhere in the summer, and from 

 their bizarre shape and great abundance they 

 are certainly a surprise to the uninitiated. 

 Concealed in the daytime beneath a board or 

 log or in a burrow in the sand, the toad is 

 rarely seen, but he makes up for his sluggish 

 days by great activity at night. I have often 

 followed a toad track until I became tired of 

 the pursuit, for the animal travels surprising 

 distances, often, curiously enough, in a 

 straight line over hill and dale among the 

 dunes. 



Of insect tracks in the dunes there is a 

 goodly quantity, from those of the grasshop- 

 per, which, owing to the multitude of foot- 

 prints, suggests a milliped, but whose hop- 

 marks are deep and abrupt, to the transitory 

 ones of the restless tiger beetle, as he alights 

 for a moment, and from those made by the 

 excursions of the staghorn beetle to the 



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