11 



skin being thin and readily permitting ttie passage of water. Tlmt 

 water is jjrobably taken in through tlie skin is apparent from the snd- 

 den appearance of toads during showers or when lawns are being 

 sprinkled. 



The toad does not take dead or motionless food. Only living and 

 moving insects, centipedes, etc., are devoured. I have repeatedly seen 

 proof of this fact. Cut worms or other larvae disturbed by the hop- 

 ping of the batracliian are safe so long as they remain curled up ; but 

 immediately they commence to travel tkey are captured. The toad's 

 tongue (Plate II. figs. 1, 2,), its only organ for seizing food, is soft, 

 extensilf, attached in front, but free behind, and is covered with a 

 glutinous substance which adheres firmly to the food seized. So 

 rapid is the motion of this weapon that a careful watch is necessary 

 iu order to see the animal feed. The writer once confined for study 

 a large toad in a shaded out-of-door box filled with damp earth. To 

 provide suitable and sufficient food for it was quite a task until an 

 entirel}' satisfactory expedient suggested itself. A hard bread-crust 

 was soaked iu molasses and placed in the cage. Bees, wasps, ants, 

 flies and beetles came to this bait and it was most interesting to watch 

 the toad seize the flying insects, often before they had alighted on 

 the bread. Stinging insects, bees, wasps, etc., when swallowed by 

 the toad apparently produced uncomfortable sensations for a short 

 time. Fish-worms when captured by the toad of ten prove too much to 

 be swallowed at once and when this is the case the fore-limbs are 

 brought into use to force the unfortunate worm into the capacious 

 gullet of its captor. 



At night, soon after sundown, or even before on cool evenings, 

 the toad emerges from its shelter and slowly hops about in seaich 

 of food. Something of a regular beat is covered by these animals 

 whose sense of locality is quite strong. In the country this includes 

 forays along roadsides, into gardens and cultivated fields, and 

 wherever insect food is abundant and grass or other thick herbage 

 does not prevent locomotion. In cities and suburban villages the 

 lawns, walks and particularly the spots beneath electric lamps are 

 favorite hunting giounds. At Amherst, Massachusetts, the writer 

 once counted eight large well-fed toads seated under an arc light and 

 actively engaged in devouiing the insects, which, deprived of wings, 

 fell from the lamp above. Dr. Charles Murleigh, a prominent phy- 

 sician of Maiden, Massachusetts, and a close obseivei in the field of 

 natural science, informs me that a colony of some half-dozen toads 



