BATRACHIA. 





every twenty-four hours is almost beyond belief. T! 



clumsy in their hopping gait that unless one has 



hardly possible that they can catch forms 30 active as m 



yet a few moments' watching will .show hovs the} -1m ii. I. 



fat toad as he sits blinking his eyes in the 3hade 



seems utterly oblivious of everything; but wait until 



him. With the quickness of light his long tongue is tin 



sticks on the end of it, and is drawn int.. the mouth bel 



of it, and there sits the toad as stolidly a- before. I I sionallj 



tures a form, like a grasshopper or earthworm, too 1 



at a single gulp; then he puts up one of his paws and I 



down, or, slowly hopping to some stick or stone, trii 



down, by knocking it against the object. 



In the early spring the toad is one of the first forms to be 

 ponds and puddles. It takes a long breath, and then expanding 

 sac beneath the throat, it utters its rolling musical uote. This 

 song, and if one visits the pond at this time, he will find it till, 

 toads. A week later and the song has stopped in the pond, ami 1 

 is to be seen there ; but from some retired spot you can 

 the same ' urr-r-r-r-r,' and there the toad is to be found. 



One of the most peculiar of the North American toads is th 

 toad, which receives its name from a projection on the foot used in tl >: . 

 These forms, while really quite abundant, are hut rarely seen, iv< 

 fact that they live subterranean lives, only coming I 

 breeding purposes in the month of April, and then aftei a 

 denly disappearing. Dr. C. C. Abbott has written a long 

 forms, and a few extracts from his paper will illustrate the peculiar l 

 of then economy. His observations were made near Trenton, N 

 1884. "During the night of June 25-26, a violent northe 

 and the rain fell in torrents. The sink-hole which for w 

 nearly dry, was again flooded, and on the afternoon of the 26th wi 

 ally alive with these rare toads. Sitting on every proji 

 of grass, or swimming with their heads above the surfao 

 were spade-foots by the hundred, and every one apparently 

 shrill, ear-piercing groans which only these batrachians 

 only dining the day, but all night their cries were kept up. 

 day there was no abatement, but during the night the 

 On the morning of the 28th not an individual was to tx s 



In these two days they had laid their id return" 



ground burrows. The eggs hatched out. the tadpoles 

 and a month later every individual of the new br 



