452 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



up into a ball much larger than his head, and he 

 gave forth that half burr and half whistle note 

 with which we are all familiar; but it is not always 

 necessary to imitate the toad -to make him sing, for 

 the one under my kitchen would come hopping out 

 in the evening and sit on the door-sill and every 

 time my little baby daughter gurgled with infantile 

 glee the toad would answer with a bur r -r, 

 greatly to the entertainment of my guests and the 

 delight of the baby. 



I have always understood that toads were great 

 gluttons, and so I took a can of big, fat, Long 

 Island angle-worms, and, one at a time, threw them 

 in front of this toad that he might prove the ca- 

 pacity of his race for this sort of food; but after 

 he had eaten a dozen or so, he blinked his eyes two 

 or three times, turned his back on a nice, squirm- 

 ing worm as big as a Lamprey eel, and hopped 

 away in a dignified manner to his retreat under the 

 sill. 



I have been very much interested in noticing 

 how much a toad becomes attached to a certain 

 locality. This Pike County toad has lived under 

 the door-sill for a number of years, although it 

 must go to a considerable distance to the lake 

 every breeding season, while another toad in my 

 back-yard in Flushing, lived several years in a dis- 

 carded flower-pot, to enter which he had to make 

 a perpendicular hop of about six inches and then 

 creep into a hole which was made in the earth in 

 the flower-pot. 



