Scaphiopus holhrookii 91 



In the field we made the following notes: 



(a) Strangely enough the croaking males were not so hard to approach 

 in the daytime as at night when we tried to photograph them. At night we 

 found them more wild and shy, restless. They proved harder to see and hold 

 by flashlight than many species of toads or frogs. Often when croaking they 

 were just out of the range of the flashhght. 



(b) Almost always each male of a pair had a predominance of yellowish 

 hues and the female inclines to the brownish hues. 



(c) The throat when inflated glistened by day or under the flashlight in 

 the night. 



(d) Apparently the females seem to have hind feet very perceptibly 

 smaller and lighter than in the male. 



(e) "The male seemed to have the rear end of the body more of an 

 extended ridge than in axillary, pectoral embracing forms." 



(f) Often a male if placed on his back would draw up his hind legs and 

 fore legs and rest on his back as a gopher frog will on his haunches if leaned 

 up against some object. 



(g) Males have the inner edges of first two fingers and sometimes the 

 third finger with excrescences; and the first two fingers and the fingers in 

 general are broader, less slender than in the females. 



(h) The males and females are not so dissimilar in size as in some species. 

 The males externally are visible as such at about 53 or 54 mm., the females at 

 50 or 51 mm. Presumably, according to our presumptive evidence of growth, 

 these are 4-year-olds. 



Duration, day or night. Pike (1886, p. 218) says "the Spadefoot has a 

 great dislike to water, and when forced to it for breeding purposes does not 

 remain in it long, from three to five days at most. The embrace often takes 

 place on land, as it does occasionally in toads, so that they only enter the 

 water for the purpose of spawning. Their wonderful screaming chorus is 

 kept up the whole time the animals are in coitu, and is the love song of the 

 males, the females having only a low guttural grunt. As soon as possible the 

 sexes separate and seek their summer homes, where they lead solitary lives 

 till they have to seek their winter's retreat." In 1920 we wrote that "The 

 hermit spadefoot toad appears suddenly after prolonged rains in April and 

 May or sometimes June or July. At the breeding season it is fond of sprawl- 

 ing out on the surface of the water as a wood frog does, and it is from this 

 position that it croaks. This species gathers in large breeding assemblies like 

 toads, and the matings are as spirited." 



On August 16, 1928, beyond noon we found these spade-foots in congress. 

 They continued all that afternoon and through the night, but early the next 

 morning, August 17, not a one was to be found in pond nor nearby. All had 

 left the pond or were in hiding in the pond or most presumably had burrow- 

 ed in the nearby soil. If heavy rainy weather is on they like other species of 

 spadefoots will breed by day, even start first in the daytime but darkness 

 is the preferred period for spade-foots in general (.S. holhrookii, S. couchi 

 and >S. hammondii) . 



