FROGS, TOADS AND SOME GRAY-HAIRED LIES 443 

 WILD LANDS PRODUCE TOADS 



of generous proportions, but in the Rocky Moun- 

 tain district the toads are gigantic, and their 

 habits differ materially from our Eastern toads. 

 The "hoptoads" of the East, as far as my observa- 

 tion goes, only frequent the waters at mating time 

 in the spring or in the early summer, but 



THESE WESTERN TOADS 



seem to linger around the brooks and river banks 

 all summer. They are great big gray fellows with 

 a white stripe down the middle of their backs ; they 

 have not the least fear of rushing torrents, whirl- 

 pools and roaring waterfalls. During times of 

 freshets, the wild Western streams sweep the trees 

 from their shores, and so fierce are the currents 

 that when the "whim" sticks are deposited in the 

 form of driftwood along the shores of the reced- 

 ing water, they are completely denuded of their 

 bark. Wherever a tangled lot of smooth, barkless 

 driftwood is spread over the surface of a seething 

 eddy there you are sure to find 



INNUMERABLE TOADS. 



I pushed some of them off into the rapid water of 

 Swan River; that did not seem to alarm them, how- 

 ever, and not one was swept out into the stream, 

 but every individual taking advantage of the eddies 

 and back currents, succeeded in reaching the drift- 



