34 Journal of Entomology and Zoology 
lected was kept separate and the data as to its time and place of collection were 
recorded. ‘This data can be found under the discussion of the individual species. 
My part in the collecting was during the season of 1916, and during the following 
fall and winter the material was examined. 
As complete information as possible was secured as to the stage of transforma- 
tion; the length of the tail, condition of the mouth, length of the alimentary canal, 
its differentiation into stomach, small and large intestines, and the development of 
the front legs—all these facts were noted. Unfortunately at first the desirability of 
so complete a record was not realized and the bullfrog, which was the first species 
studied, did not receive as full treatment as those taken up later. 
After the alimentary canal had been removed and its length had been measured, 
the contents were removed and identified. In many cases, prhaps a more exact 
determination of the forms found could have been carried out by specialists, but the 
kind of food rather than the exact species seemed the essential thing. For this reason 
a not very serious attempt was made below the identification to family, especially 
where digestion had proceeded to any extent. 
WORK PREVIOUSLY DONE 
Some very thorough investigation has been carried out on the food of the adults 
of several species, in America the most notable being that of Kirkland on the Ameri- 
can toad, and of Drake on the meadow-frog. Kirkland’ in an examination of 149 
toad stomachs which had been collected in a number of situations, found that by 
bulk 98% of the food examined was animal, that 77% was made up of insects and, 
that of the insect food 11% was of beneficial forms, 22% neutral and 62% injurious. 
He made note, too, of the fact that the toad feeds largely at night and that in a single 
twenty-four hours it can fill its stomach to its complete capacity four times. He said, 
too, that the toad takes only living and moving forms; this fact is one repeated 
by other observers for other species of the Anura andgagrees with my own results. 
As an example of the evident attractive power a moving object has for an Anuran I 
may mention a specimen in the Museum of the University of Denver. It is a toad 
probably of the Woodhouse variety, which was brought in dead and dried up and 
with the tip of a turkey wing projecting from the mouth. It had evidently been 
attracted by the small bunch of feathers being blown about and, having swallowed a 
part was not able to finish the process nor to disgorge because of the barbs of the 
feathers catching in the throat. 
From the tables given by Kirkland one is led to infer that practically no aquatic 
forms enter into the toad’s diet, a not very surprising fact when its terrestrial habits 
are remembered. Since many aquatic insects are attracted to electric lights, it is 
evident that a toad or frog feeding under the corner are light can secure such forms 
without ever approaching water. 
‘Kirkland, A. H., 1897. Habits, food and economic value of the American toad. (Bull. 46 
of Hatch Exp. Station of the Mass. Agric. College, 1904.) Usefulness of the American toad. 
(Farmers Bull. 196, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.) 
