392 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



often surprise the couple on the dike-edge, when the female 

 will make for the water, carrying her lover and diving in 

 with him on her back. 



As you listen by the dike-side, you may hear the sharp 

 waterhen-like note of the water-toads ; but directly you 

 approach the noise they dive and are gone, for they are 

 very quick to take alarm. 



The spawn is found soon after the frogs spawn, and before 

 the running toad spawns. If you go very softly in the 

 middle of April (the height of the spawning season) by the 

 dikes, you may see some amorous pairs with their noses 

 just above water, and others sitting down on the weeds. 



A month after the -spawning season all is quiet in the 

 dikes, and they are more rarely to be seen, though you 

 often come across them on the walls with their human-like 

 walk i.e., like a man walking on all fours. 



THE RUNNING TOAD, 



As I have said, has a yellow stripe down his back, and is 

 commoner in some districts than others. The chief thing in 

 connection with this creature is the rockstaff that a man can 

 quiet the most restive horse with the bone of a running 

 toad, which, it is said, will swim against the stream. Yacht 

 designers and others might well look into this matter. 



THE COMMON FROG. 



In March the batrachian life of the swamps awakes, and 

 you may any fine morning hear the croaking of the frogs, 

 coming, as it were, from the bowels of the earth. If you go 

 down to the low-lying wet marshes, where grows reedy 

 litter, and search the clear pools, you will presently come 

 across a pool alive with marsh frogs, making the still water 

 bubble in miniature storm. As you approach they vanish, 



