Bufo quercicus 115 



Loennberg (1895, P- 33^) says "This is a very active little animal con- 

 sidering the fact that it is a toad. It is seen in all kinds of places and at all 

 times of the day, even in the brightest sunshine, but especially after rain". 



VOICE 



During the breeding season according to Holbrook (1842, Vol. V, p. 14) 

 "the male (has) a slight chirp, not unlike some kinds of insects". To Deckert 

 (1914b, p. 2) "its cry resembles that of a small chick, very loud and shrill, and 

 may be heard at any time of day or night, sometimes from absolutely dry and 

 dusky fields and roadsides, where these tiny toads hop about in the glaring 

 sunshine, living on the smallest of insects. The full chorus, which is ear 

 splitting, is, however, heard only at night, after heavy rains". 



]Miss Dickerson (1906, pp. 19, 21, 105, 106) speaks of Bufo quercicus thus: 

 "Vocal bladders inflated from the middle of the throat are to be found in 

 Bufo cognatus, Bufo compactilis and Bufo quercicus''. ^'Bufo quercicus would 

 seem to be expressing most active distress in its tones like those of a lost 

 chicken". "They are difficult to see, but give notice of high-pitched sounds. 

 The individual call is like that of a young chicken in distress, but considerably 

 louder. The male alone gives the call, and while producing it seems to have in 

 his mouth a transparent bladdder about the size of a man's thumb. The fact 

 is that this toad has a large vocal bladder that can be extended from the 

 mid-line to the lower throat region. This structure relates it to Bufo com- 

 pactilis and Bufo cognatus of the Southwest. When taken in the hand, the 

 Oak Toad gives a rather musical chirping sound, like that of a young bird". 



The first day we recorded its calling in 192 1 comes May 16. Then one of 

 the lads brought in an oak toad he had taken on the edge of a cypress pond. 

 A little later Mr. Harper "went off in the piney woods. He came back and 

 reported one of the biggest queries he has yet encountered. He said he didn't 

 know whether the caller was a bird, or beast, or whether it might be young 

 bobwhites, queer, brownheaded nuthatches or some other bird? A rain came 

 up and not until he was just ready to leave did he solve the note. It was that 

 of Bufo quercicus. It seemed so unfroghke or untoadlike a call to him". 



His journal note is as follows: "A baffling, peeping in several parts of the 

 piney woods. Some strange Hyla, bobwhite or something althogether differ- 

 ent? Nearly desperate over these peepings here and there in the pinej' woods, 

 always stopping when I came close. — Scarcely know whether to look in trees 

 or on the ground. Finally one peeped in a fairly open, burnt over space, and 

 by hearing it from several directions at close range, I hit upon the spot pretty 

 closely. Then getting on my knees I had scarcely gone a yard, when a little 

 black toad, with a thin, golden-yellow stripe down its back, made a Httle 

 movement among the grass and saw palmetto. Bufo quercicus! And mean- 

 while other peepings continue at intervals in the other parts of the piney 

 woods; pheep, pheep, pheep, pheep, pheep, pheep, pheep, pheep, pheep, pheep, 

 pheep, — a plaintive (rather shrill) high-pitched piping. 



"When I 'froze' for several minutes, it quit 'freezing" on its part, and made 

 a few leisurely forward movements, crawhng with one leg at a time, lizard- 



