1904. i ABBOTT — REPORTED SHOWERS OF TOADS. L63 



ONE EXPLANATION OF REPORTED SHOWERS OF 



TOADS. 



BY DR. CHARLES CONRAD ABBOTT. 



{Read April 8, 1904.) 



The frequent references in newspapers to occurrences of *' showers 

 of toads " have suggested to the author that a condition in the life- 

 history of the spade-foot toad, a little-known and strictly nocturnal 

 species, living in the ground, might explain them more rationally 

 than that the little batrachians are picked up by the wind in one 

 place and dropped in another, perhaps miles away, or that other 

 still more strange view quite common among the , ignorant that 

 toad-spawn is sucked up by the sun and hatched in clouds, where 

 the tadpoles remain until they have advanced to the dignity of 

 hoppers, when they fall to the earth. Unlike the common toad 

 and the frogs, the spade-foot toad {Scaphiopiis solitariiis) does not 

 have a regular season for deposition of ova, but the eggs may be 

 laid at anytime from April i to August 31. Furthermore, this 

 batrachian does not resort to permanent watercourses or ponds on 

 such errand, but takes advantage of temporary pools formed by 

 showers of longer duration than is usual. It is remarkable how 

 admirably this strange irregularity of an important event should be 

 adapted to transitory conditions. Pools of rainwater seldom 

 remain long on the ground's surface. Soakage and evaporation 

 soon obliterate them ; but that this may not prove a fatal objection, 

 the eggs of the spade-foot toad hatch in about ninety-six hours, 

 and in less than two weeks, or fourteen days at most, the tadpole 

 has become a terrestrial animal or a 'Miopper " and leaves its 

 nursery. The development is even more rapid occasionally, I am 

 led to believe, being accelerated by excessive warmth or retarded 

 if the days are cool and cloudy. 



It will be readily seen that young spade-foot toads, congregated 

 in or immediately about a temporary pool, will not wander far from 

 it when their subterranean life begins, but will bury themselves in 

 the comparatively moist ground where they happen to be. Should, 

 at this time of their limited wandering, there occur one or more 

 violent showers, the ground being wetted and little pools formed, 

 the young spade-foot toads would necessarily, we might say, wander 

 over a much wider extent of territory, and, escaping notice when 



