COMMON TOAD. 203 



It sometimes happens that toads find their way 

 into situations, from which it is impossible for them 

 to make their exit in order to take to the water 

 during the hreeding-season. Such is the case with a 

 small colony I am acquainted with, consisting per- 

 haps of a dozen or twenty individuals, which have 

 for many years had their residence in a damp cellar, 

 to which are underground windows, with a small 

 recess in front of each, the light and air being 

 admitted from above. These underground recesses 

 are covered at top with iron bars, through which 

 toads might easily fall, though they could not get 

 out again by reason of the steepness of the sides. 

 Those I have just alluded to as incarcerated in this 

 manner begin to recover from their winter's sleep at 

 the usual period, and, during the spring, shew great 

 activity, keeping up a perpetual croaking, and stick- 

 ing to one another's backs, just as they may be seen 

 in the water at this season. The sexual excitement 

 however seems to stop here ; and, as far as I have 

 observed, the female never deposits any spawn, which 

 of course would come to nothing without the proper 

 element necessary for its maturation. 



I have stated above the circumstance of a large 

 piece of water at Bottisham Hall, which always used 



above remark, than the fact of the immense numbers of coleo- 

 ptera, some usually reputed rare, which have occasionally been 

 taken during floods, collected upon the drifting herbage, and 

 carried by the waters to one spot. See notices of this kind in the 

 Entomological Transactions, vol. i. (181.2) p. 315; and more recently 

 in the Zoologist, vol. i. pp. 116 and 177. There are many other 

 similar ones on record. 



