86 THE COMMON TOAD 



after losing its tail and developing lungs, leaving the water and 

 appearing in its adult state as a terrestrial and lung-breathing form. 

 The toads visit the water in March or April, their breeding season, 

 for the purpose of depositing their eggs, which are deposited in 

 long strings, the male drawing the eggs out of the female's body. 

 In habits the toad is nocturnal, prowling about nearly everywhere 

 in the evening in quest of prey. It hides by day among stones, grass, 

 coarse herbage, leaves, rubbish, etc. It feeds upon slugs, woodlice, 

 flies, earwigs, and other insects, including their larvae, such as cater- 

 pillars. During winter the toad hybernates, choosing a hole, in 

 the ground, frequently at the root of a tree and in clefts of rock or 

 heaps of stones, and passes the winter in solitary dignity. 



The popular repugnance to the toad rests mainly on its unpre- 

 possessing and outward appearance, for no venom or poison appara- 

 tus exists in this very useful creature, and save that the secretion 

 of the skin may be of an acrid or irritant nature when brought in 

 contact with cut or exposed surfaces, it is utterly harmless in every 



FIG. 56. THE COMMON TOAD AND WOODLICE. 



way. The toad is easily tamed, and in a garden or plant-house one 

 of the most useful creatures. Reports of toads having been found 

 immured in solid rocks, where they must have remained for ages, 

 and yet crawling about lively and well on being released, are pub- 

 lished every year. Objections, however, to their reception may be 

 found : firstly, that the rock was solid ; secondly, that the relaters 

 of such tales seldom notice the circumstances of imprisonment, and 

 "jump to conclusions" on superstitious ideas ; and thirdly, the 

 possibility of the toad gaining admittance through a crack in the 

 rock while quite young, and there subsisting on insects, whilst 

 its increasing growth prevents its escape from the cavity in which 

 it is found on the rock being broken up. Similar remarks apply 

 to toads said to be found in the " hearts " of trees, this being always 



