TOADS AND FROGS 



only two young toads will live to grow up and 

 come back to the pond to breed in their turn ! 

 All the rest die by one means or another before 

 they come to maturity. But before going into 

 the question of all the dangers that the wee 

 tadpoles have to face, I must mention that the 

 old toads have a water-side foe which wages 

 war upon them, and that is the common brown 

 rat. So far as I am aware, the rat is the only 

 creature that will attack and kill the common 

 toad, though even then it does not do so for 

 food, the bodies never being eaten, but merely 

 for mischief. I have seen the corpses of scores 

 of toads lying in heaps at the water-side, killed 

 and their middles torn open, but no part eaten, 

 while the tracks around in the soft mud told 

 only too plainly the story of the murderer. 

 The common rat is nearly as much at home in 

 the water as the real water-rat or water-vole ; 

 but the latter is a very harmless creature and 

 never interferes with toads or anything else, 

 living chiefly on grass and leaves. 



A week or more passes, and then the toads, 

 their spring madness over, leave the water as 

 suddenly as they came; one day the pool is 

 full of them, the next they are gone, and it 

 knows them no more until April comes round 



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