88 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



amphibious creatures they yet seek it for so short 

 a period in each year, and for the rest of the time 

 are practically without it ! The toad comes to it 

 in the love season, and at that time one is often 

 astonished at the number of toads seen gathered in 

 some solitary pool, where perhaps not a toad has 

 been seen for months past, and with no other water 

 for miles around. The fact is, the solitary pool has 

 drawn to itself the entire toad population of the 

 surrounding country, which may comprise an area 

 of several square miles. Each toad has his own 

 home or hermitage somewhere in that area, where 

 he spends the greater portion of the summer season 

 practically without water excepting in wet weather, 

 hiding by day in moist and shady places, and 

 issuing forth in the evening. And there too he 

 hibernates in winter. When spring returns he sets 

 out on his annual pilgrimage of a mile or two, or 

 even a greater distance, travelling in the slow, 

 deliberate manner of the one described, crawling 

 and resting until he arrives at the sacred pool 

 his Tipperary. They arrive singly and are in 

 hundreds, a gathering of hermits from the desert 

 places, drunk with excitement, and filling the place 

 with noise and commotion. A strange sound, when 

 at intervals the leader or precentor or bandmaster 

 for the moment blows himself out into a wind 

 instrument a fairy bassoon, let us say, with a 

 tremble to it and no sooner does he begin than 

 a hundred more join in ; and the sound, which the 

 scientific books describe as " croaking," floats far 



