106 MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN. 



ones, hop about on the gravel walks ? For 

 many years, I believed that they rained 

 down ; and I suppose many people think so 

 still. They are so small, and they come in 

 such numbers only in the shower, that the 

 supposition is not a violent one. " Thick as 

 toads after a shower " is one of our best 

 proverbs. I asked an explanation of this of 

 a thoughtful woman, indeed, a leader in 

 the great movement to have all the toads hop 

 in any direction, without any distinction of 

 sex or religion. Her reply was that the 

 toads came out during the shower to get 

 water. This, however, is not the fact. I 

 have discovered that they come out not to 

 get water. I deluged a dry flower-bed, the 

 other night, with pailful after pailful of 

 water. Instantly the toads came out of their 

 holes in the dirt, by tens and twenties and 

 fifties, to escape death by drowning. The 

 big ones fled away in a ridiculous streak of 

 hopping ; and the little ones sprang about 

 in the wildest confusion. The toad is just 

 like any other land animal : when his house 



