IUJlbcn (Brass is Green 



yards or more away from where you located it 

 when you started on your hunt. 



This is what Professor Cope says of them, and 

 all to the contrary may be set down as false : 



Dwellers in the country are familiar with the voice 

 of this species in the early spring, which is the season of 

 the deposit of eggs. These are laid inclosed in a long, 

 thick-walled tube of transparent albumen, secreted by the 

 walls of the oviducts. These tubes lie in long spiral 

 strings in the bottoms of the ponds where they are depos- 

 ited. The young hatch out early, and are of a darker color 

 than those of others of our Salientia (frogs and toads). 

 They retain the dark color till near the time of the comple- 

 tion of the metamorphosis. This takes place at an earlier 

 date than that of the Ranse (frogs), and the completed 

 young are scarcely as large as those of the Hylae (tree- 

 toads) or of the Scaphiopus (spade-foot toad). The voice of 

 this species may be heard well into the summer. It is a 

 sonorous ur-r-r-r-r-r, which may be readily imitated by 

 whistling while one utters a deep-toned vocal sound ex- 

 pressed in the above letters. Individuals differ in the 

 pitch of their notes, but a chorus of them has a weird 

 sound well befitting the generally remote spots where they 

 congregate, and the darkness of the hour. When not thus 

 engaged, they often take up their abode beneath the door- 

 step of the farmer's house, and'issue in the evening to se- 

 cure their insect food. They progress by hops, and only 

 walk on very rare occasions. 



So far, my friend, Professor Cope; but toads 

 are quite as abundant in villages and towns as 

 in the country. I have seen them in the open 

 "squares " of Philadelphia more than once, 

 and they are not unknown in the yards of resi- 

 6* 85 



