The American Toad 



garden, and as the summer went on they " grew fatter and fatter 

 till they were round as apples," and her garden became very 

 beautiful. 



Toads are especially valuable in greenhouses. In fact, toads 

 and frogs, also, if kept in greenhouses, will free the place not only 

 from slugs and snails, cutworms and injurious beetles, but also 

 from sowbugs, the small crustaceans that eat the roots of all sorts 

 of plants. (Fig. 52.) The fact that a toad will eat earthworms 

 adds to his value to the keeper of a greenhouse; for although 

 worms are of inestimable value in nature, when they are confined 

 in a greenhouse, where their work is not needed, they become an 

 actual nuisance. 



It is interesting to watch a toad eat a large earthworm — or 

 rather, try to eat it, for, if the earthworm is an unusually large one, 

 success may not follow the toad's most vigorous efforts. He sees 

 the moving object, walks toward it cautiously (Figs. 58-60), 

 makes a dash, and seizes one end of itliin his mouth. But the 

 worm is fully aroused to the situation, and begins vigorous efforts 

 to escape. The toad uses his front feet like hands to push the 

 worm into his mouth, and if he is quick enough and strong enough 

 he may succeed in getting it all in and swallowing it, or at least 

 all but the " tail " of it, which remains for some time hanging out of 

 one corner of his mouth. But more likely the worm gets out of 

 his mouth as fast as he can put it in, because it is slimy and can 

 stretch to be very long, and because the toad has no teeth to hold 

 it. He is likely to give it up in disgust. If he succeeds in swal- 

 lowing it after persistent effort, he is likely to have a disgusted 

 look, for he does not like the slime that covers the worm. He will 

 sit for a long time opening and shutting his cavernous mouth as 

 if he were not feeling comfortable, and nothing can induce him to 

 take another worm. 



When the toad catches an earthworm, he takes it head first, 

 walking past or around the tail, and making his attack at the for- 

 ward-moving end. This is interesting, since the worm has four 

 rows of backward-projecting spines along its whole length, so that 

 if it were taken tail end first it would be a rather uncomfortable 

 object to swallow. A toad can eat a small earthworm almost as 

 easily as he can a caterpillar. It is likely that on rainy days toads 

 eat many of the worms that come out of the ground to escape 

 drowning. 



85 



