the Natural History of the Toad. 89 



To try their indiscriminate appetite further, some living 

 minows [Cyprinus Phoxinus) were procured, and one of them 

 dropped before a toad: so soon as it began to struggle its no- 

 tice was attracted, and having approached to a proper distance 

 it viewed it with attention, and after some time made a stroke ; 

 but being slippery, it did not adhere sufficiently to its tongue 

 to bring it into its mouth ; but the minow continuing to strug- 

 gle, the stroke was repeated, and the minnow swallowed. 

 After a few minutes a second was dropped, nearly two inches 

 long, at which some feeble and ineffectual strokes were made ; 

 the minnow was taken up alive and put into water. Next 

 morning the toad was observed in the same place ; the min- 

 now dropped before it, which it struck at vigorously and fairly 

 swallowed. 



One trait in the character of the toad must not be passed 

 over without notice, and that is, its uniformly refusing to feed 

 on dead insects, however recent. To ascertain whether the 

 effects of hunger would not overcome this aversion, a vigor- 

 ous toad was placed in a large garden pot, and a number of 

 recently dead bees put in along with it, and covered so as to 

 admit air, but prevent the access of any insect large enough 

 for it to feed upon; at the expiration of six or seven days, on 

 examination it was found not a bee had been touched ; yet the 

 writer from many years' experience knows that when alive 

 they are a favourite food. It may be alleged that this was not 

 a fair experiment, and that being in a state of unnatural con- 

 finement was the cause; but that could not be the reason, as 

 they will generally eat living insects freely after one hour's 

 imprisonment. 



About the time the Hirundines leave us, toads retire to 

 their winter quarters, which are in the bottoms of walls, roots 

 of hedges and close bushes, or any situation where they are 

 likely to be protected from the frosts of winter; and some even 

 burrow in the solid ground to a depth which the frost seldom 

 penetrates, not in numbers together like frogs, but solitarily*. 



* In the spring the writer lias twice had an opportunity of detecting 

 them in the act of emerging from their annual interment. Walking in his 

 orchard, as often as he happened to tread on one particular spot a faint 

 squeak was heard, which being frequently repeated, he was induced care- 

 fully to open the ground, and found that a toad had approached so near the 

 surface that the pressure of his loot had given it pain. The second was 

 in :t dry open meadow, and discovered by the uttering of the same sort of 

 squeak on treading on one place; and on opening the ground a toad was 

 found as in the first instance. 



They burrow backwards, by the alternate motion of their hinder legs, 

 the writer having seen them in the very act. 



Vol. 'Ji. No. 3L6. Aug. 1821." M The 



