Field Notes on the Homed Toad 

 Virginia Ballen 



From San Francisco Bulletin 



Homed toads like human beings. Somehow they have gotten 

 the idea in their queer-spined heads that humans are admirable 

 creatures. When they run from one it is in a manner as if they 

 feared, yet half'wanted, to be caught. They can run fast enough 

 if they want to, if the big Road Runner is after them, or the Prairie 

 Falcon swoops over them. 



The Road Runner chases them mostly for fun. He has not 

 learned to manage the homed toad very well. The lizard erects 

 his spines and nearly always pushes himself out of the bird's long 

 bill that opens far back into its head. 



The short, overlapping, hooked beak of hawks and falcons is 

 another matter. These birds rake them over on their backs and 

 tear at them before trv'ing to swallow them. 



When a human hand lowers over the homed toad, he scoots and 

 wiggles a little distance ahead, and after a short race, allows him- 

 self to be caught. He likes to be stroked and petted, and he likes 

 the sound of the human voice. 



Human beings generally like the homed toad the first time they 

 see it, which is the ver>^ reason the fat, little lizards like us. If we 

 liked snakes they would not look at us with such fear in their eyes. 

 Even in the htmian eyes an expression of fear is very like a look of 

 hate. Fear looking out of the eyes of the wild people is exactly like 

 an expression of hate. So we think the snakes have hateful, evil 

 eyes. 



If we felt toward the harmless snakes as we feel toward the 

 homed toad we would soon have many more friends in the fields an 

 woodlands. 



We cannot have too many friends and acquaintances in the open. 

 The friendly little homed toad closes his eyes with rapture when 

 we rub his back. Rub him on the sides and he tips over sidewise, 

 blinking with delight. Rub his stomach and he can be taught to 

 stand on his hind feet. Many lizards stretch up and even make 

 dashing runs here and there on their hind feet when they are play- 

 ing. The homed lizard eats like a toad, darting outs its sticky 

 tongue and catching flies like a real toad. 



If you keep bees look out for the homed toad. He sits at the 

 door of the hive and swallows the bees as they come in. But in a 



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