to the cool cucumber-vines and proceeds at once 

 to kick himself into bed. He backs and kicks 

 and elbows into the loose sand as far as he can, 

 then screws and twists till he is worked out of 

 sight beneath the soil, hind end foremost. Here 

 he lies, with only his big pop-eyes sticking out, 

 half asleep, half awake. If a hungry adder 

 crawls along, he simply pulls in his eyes, the 

 loose sand falls over them, and the snake 

 passes on. 



When the nights begin to grow chilly and 

 there are threatenings of frost, the toads hunt up 

 winter quarters, and hide deep down in some 

 warm burrow till to-morrow if the sun comes 

 out hot, or, it may be, not to wake until next 

 April. Sometimes an unexpected frost catches 

 them, when any shelter must do, when even their 

 snake-fear is put aside or forgotten. " Misery 

 acquaints a man with strange bedfellows," said 

 Trinculo, as he crawled in with Caliban from the 

 storm. So might the toad say in an early frost. 



The workmen in a sandstone-quarry near by 



dug out a bunch of toads one winter, all mixed 



up with a bunch of adders. They were wriggled 



and squirmed together in a perfect jumble of 



[317] 



