CHAPTER XXVIII 



AMPHIBIA: SIRENS, PROTEANS, SALAMANDERS, FROGS, 

 TREE FROGS, AND TOADS 



For an insectivorous animal which conforms to every requirement of the 

 situation ease of control and rapid increase, noninjurious in any numbers, 

 an active feeder in abundance and a patient faster in scarcity the toad 

 stands probably first on the list among American insectivorous animals. 

 MILLER, "Biology of the American Toad," American Naturalist, Vol. XLIII 

 (1D09), p. 643 



The amphibia are a relatively small group of about 1400 

 species, of diverse kinds (from wormlike Ccecilians, through the 

 two-legged and four-legged sirens and salamanders, to frogs 

 and toads) aquatic, semiaquatic, and terrestrial form- 

 ing, as the name implies, a transition series from the fishes 

 to the higher land animals. All amphibia are carnivorous, 

 many of our common forms ranking with birds as efficient 

 destroyers of insects ; and as a group they cover the whole field, 

 for salamanders, bullfrogs, and other aquatic species hunt the 

 waters of our ponds and streams and their immediate shores, 

 wood frogs and toads and many of the salamanders follow 

 insects of the ground both by day and by night, and tree 

 frogs are especially adapted to feeding upon insects of forest 

 and orchard. 1 



Amphibia belong exclusively to fresh waters and the land. 

 They are comparatively small, the largest modern amphibian 

 being the giant salamander of Japan, which is said to reach a 



1 Hornaday's statement, "With very few exceptions, the amphibians are 

 quite useless to man " (Natural History, p. 360), is evidently made without 

 due regard to their powers of insect destruction or even to their uses as 

 fish bait. 



313 



