1898.] ESSAYS. 73 



one or two. Diflerent individuals coming from varying distances 

 naturally reach the water at difFerent times, so that the breeding 

 season generally extends over two or three weeks. Almost any 

 hour of the day, during this time, the children could be seen run- 

 ning round and round the pond clubbing and stoning the toads. 

 Great numbers were not killed outright and could be seen struir- 

 gling about in the water with legs broken and dangling and entrails 

 exposed or eyes crushed out. In walking once around the pond, 

 I counted 200 dead or mutilated toads, and a little boy told me that 

 the day before he and another boy had killed 300 by count and 

 carried them off in an old milk can. I do not suppose that this 500 

 represents more than one tenth of the whole number wantonly 

 destroyed by the boys each year in this single pond. Further- 

 more, for each female toad killed at this season we lose the 8,000 

 to 12,000 eggs that she would have laid. A system of parental 

 and public education which makes possible any such wanton 

 cruelty and destruction of valuable life is certainly faulty in the 

 extreme. And a community in which it exists ought to be 

 pestered to the limits of endurance by mosquitoes, flies and 

 gnats, and have the greater share of its flowers, fruits and vege- 

 tables destroyed by insects. It is too light a punishment to fit 

 the crime against nature. 



Such being the condition of aifairs, what can rational education 

 do to better it? A great many croakers answer: "Nothing. 

 The passion to kill is so strong in children that all education is 

 powerless to stop them." The following, however, are the facts : 



On the 31st of March I gave a brief statement to the Worces- 

 ter papers pointing out a few of the interesting facts in the life 

 history of the toad and asking the school children to learn the 

 value and use of the animal to the community. The toads came 

 to the pond to lay April 25 and, the weather turning cold, num- 

 bers could be found in the water up to May 14. During this 

 time I visited the pond daily, especially at times when the 

 children passed to and from school. The children gathered in 

 groups and watched the toads with great interest and gathered 

 hands full of eggs to take to school, but I did not see a child 

 oflfer to harm a toad. More than this, I found no evidence that 



