Fowler's Toad 



finger-joints; one large palm tubercle; order of lengths of fingers 

 from the shortest to the longest, second, fourth, first, third. 

 Toes slender; web deeply indented; inner sole tubercle well 

 developed; outer sole tubercle small (See Figs. 79 and 82.) 



Range: Dan vers, Woods Hole, and Cutty hunk Island, Massa- 

 chusetts. Common throughout Rhode Island. Probably com- 

 mon in other parts of Massachusetts, and perhaps in still other 

 New England States.* Specimens are in the American Museum 

 of Natural History, in a collection reoresenting the Batrachia 

 of the vicinity of New York City. 



Fowler's toad comes from its hibernation later in the spring 

 than the American toad. On warm evenings in late April and 

 early May, it is the latter only that we hear at the ponds. In late 

 May and in June the toad chorus in Rhode Island consists mainly 

 of the voices of Fowler's toad, with only an occasional sweet note 

 from the American toad. In July it is rarely that we hear any 

 voice but that of the Fowler's toad. 



The call of the Fowler's toad is a metallic droning sound, not 

 conspicuously vibrated. The pitch of the call may be as high as that 

 of Bufoamericanus, but descends in doleful fashion through several 

 intervals before the close. Its carrying power is unusually great. 

 The quality is indescribable; on the whole, the call is weird and 

 mournful and not especially agreeable to our ears. 



The small black-throated males sit for hours in the shallow 

 water of the pond margin or of the marshy edge of some brook, and 

 send forth woeful answering calls, inflating their throat-pouches 

 enormously at each emission of sound. (Fig. 83.) We can discover 

 them by means of these infl-^ted throats if we approach their haunt 

 with a lantern or on a moonlight night. The swollen throats look 

 like great light-coloured transparent spheres — like large white 

 bubbles — among the dark grass or above the black water. 

 That these spheres are transparent, thin-walled, and empty, except 

 for air, is interestingly proved by looking at them from the side 

 opposite the lantern. 



A few of these toads may be heard calling from park lagoons, 



1 G. M. Allen describes the song of the Fowler's toad heard in New Hampshire, but attrib- 

 utes this song to the American toad. "Notes on the Reptiles and Batrachians of Intervale, N. H." 

 Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist., 29: 63-75. 



95 



