148 PEP ACTON 



trees or on the land, yet remains to be deter- 

 mined. ^ 



Another fact in the natural history of this crea- 

 ture, not set down in the' books, is that they pass 

 the winter in a torpid state in the ground, or in 

 stumps and hollow trees, instead of in the mud of 

 ponds and marshes, like true frogs, as we have 

 been taught. The pair in the old apple-tree above 

 referred to, I heard on a warm, moist day late in 

 November, and again early in April. On the latter 

 occasion, I reached my hand down into the cavity 

 of the tree and took out one of the toads. It was 

 the first I had heard, and I am convinced it had 

 passed the winter in the moist, mud-like mass of 

 rotten wood that partially filled the cavity. It had 

 a fresh, delicate tint, as if it had not before seen 

 the light that spring. The president of a Western 

 college writes in " Science News " that two of his 

 students found one in the winter in an old stump 

 which they demolished; and a person whose vera- 

 city I have no reason to doubt sends me a specimen 

 that he dug outr of the ground in December while 

 hunting for Indian relics. The place was on the 

 top of a hill, under a pine-tree. The ground was 

 frozen on the surface, and the toad was, of course, 

 torpid. 



1 It now (1895) seems well established that both common toads 

 and tree-toads pass the first period of their lives in water as tad- 

 poles and that both undergo their metamorphosis when very- 

 small. As soon as the change is effected, the little toads leave 

 the water and scatter themselves over the country' witli remark- 

 able rapidity, traveling chiefly by night, but showing themselves 

 in the daytime after showers. 



