652 DOMESTIC ANIMALS, DAIRYING, ETC. 



out the growing season or during the period of destructive insect 

 life. 



It seems probable that the toad does not breed until the fourth 

 year. As the breeding season approaches they migrate to ponds 

 where the eggs are laid, usually in March, April, or May, according 

 to latitude. Mating is commenced as soon as the water is reached 

 or even before. The tiny black eggs with their gelatinous covering 

 are laid in ropes; this covering swells and forms a large mass. In 

 two weeks or sooner the eggs hatch and the tadpoles grow rapidly 

 until June or July, when legs appear and the tail is absorbed. As 

 many as 7,000 to 12,000 eggs have been removed from a single 

 female. 



The toad has a strong home instinct and lives year after year 

 in the same locality. The toad is not poisonous, but sometimes 

 when attacked emits through the skin an acrid fluid that is poison- 

 ous or disagreeable to some animals, notably to dogs. Toads are 

 voracious feeders and consume large numbers of insects. Earth- 

 worms, snails, sowbugs, thousand-legged worms, spiders, grasshop- 

 pers, crickets, ants, beetles, cutworms, tent caterpillars, etc., mostly 

 injurious insects, form their chief food. (Dep. Agr. F. B. 196.) 



BATS. 



Bats are common almost everywhere in the United States, 

 except possibly in the very dryest regions, within reach of water. 

 Owing to the nocturnal flight of bats their habits are not well 

 understood, but it is safe to say that all species are not only harm- 

 less but highly beneficial. They feed entirely on insects caught on 

 the wing. Bats shot in the evening after they have been flying for 

 twenty minutes will usually be found so gorged that it does not 

 seem possible that their stomachs can hold more. If their diges- 

 tion is as rapid as that of other insectivorous mammals, the number 

 of insects consumed in a night by a single bat must be enormous. 

 The great deposits of bat guano found in caves and under roosting 

 places represent in some cases hundreds of tons of insect remains. 

 (Dep. Agr. F. B. 335.) 



SILK CULTURE. 



Attempts at silk culture were made in Pennsylvania and New 

 Jersey as early as 1771. Many other attempts have been made, but 

 none of them have proven financially successful. Government aid 

 has been given by way of distributing mulberry trees and the dis- 

 tribution of silk worm eggs, but even this assistance was not suffi- 

 cient to place the enterprise on a paying basis. From experiments 

 tried in the United States, the cost of labor has been quite out of 

 proportion with the returns from the sale of cocoons or reeled silk. 

 While this country imports millions of dollars' worth of silk an- 

 nually, largely from Japan, yet chiefly on account of the high 

 price of labor, silk culture in this country has not been made 

 profitable. (Y. B. 1903.) 



VIRGINIA DEER (ODOCOILEUS VIRGINIANUS) . 



The Virginia or whitetail deer is the common deer of the 

 United States. It is distributed over most of the country and is- 



