288 



NATURE STUDY AND LIFE 



If roughly handled, a whitish liquid, which is somewhat poisonous, 

 is secreted from the skin of a toad, especially from the large glands 

 near the head. It will cause some swelling of a dog's mouth, and 



care should be 

 taken not to allow 

 it to get into the 

 eyes when hand- 

 ling toads. The 

 natural precau- 

 tions, gentle hand- 

 ling and washing 

 the hands after- 

 wards, are all-suffi- 

 c i e n t safeguards 

 against any ven- 

 omous properties, 

 and these also 

 apply to the hand- 

 ling of many other 

 animals^; but 

 everything advo- 

 cated in this chap- 

 ter can be done 

 without so much 

 as touching a toad. 

 We may catch it 

 in a large leaf, a 

 piece of paper or cloth or in a tumbler or jelly glass. The neatest 

 way to demonstrate a toad to a class is to have it in a clean tumbler 

 with a piece of gauze securely tied over the top. It may then be 



1 A. H. Kirklancl, " The Habits, Food, and Economic Value of the Ameri- 

 can Toad " {Bulletin 46, Hatch Experiment Station, Amherst, Mass.), gives 

 the fullest account extant of the toad from this standpoint. By his method, 

 killing the animals and opening the stomach, he identified eighty-three dif- 

 ferent species of insects, most of them injurious, as entering into its dietary. 

 By the method advocated above, however, i.e., by making feeding tests in 

 a vivarium with insects collected for the purpose, any school could add 



Fig. 117. Protective Coloration 



