BRITISH AMPHIBIANS 



Frog, and is often found in dry situations. It delights 

 to hide under a rock, stone, or outhouse, and a quarry 

 is a very favourite retreat. It makes its way to its spawn- 

 ing ground later than Rana iemporia, and the Cuckoo and 

 Nightingale have usually arrived from overseas ere 

 Bufo vulgaris repairs to its favourite breeding haunt. 

 The eggs, as has already been mentioned in the intro- 

 ductory notes, are laid in strings, not in closely packed 

 masses as with the Frog, and there is a double row of 

 the dark eggs enclosed within the jelly-like substance. 

 The metamorphosis resembles that of the Frog, and need 

 not be repeated. The same remark applies to the food. 

 Toads, unlike Frogs, do not possess any teeth. They 

 have stumpier and heavier limbs, placed further forward 

 than in the more active amphibians last described. As 

 a matter of fact, Bufo vulgaris has cumbersome powers of 

 locomotion, and often loses its equilibrium when nego- 

 tiating rough ground. Being less adapted for quick 

 movement, cover is taken whenever necessity demands, 

 but the Toad does not appear to have many natural 

 enemies, and is fairly immune from attack. 



Although the Toad is dirty looking, it is not, in reality, 

 an unclean creature as it changes its attire every few 

 weeks, and even has a use for this, as it swallows it out 

 of the way. The colour does not vary to any appreciable 

 extent, some shade of brown predominating above, 

 with whitish beneath. The presence of warts on the 

 skin at once distinguishes it from a Frog, but in spite of 



this, confusion is still rife. It attains a length of about 

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