66 THE NATURE STUDY COURSE. 



gardener should make an artificial pond where a good supply 

 of toads can be raised. If a toad be confined in a box 

 containing two or three inches of soil, kept moist but not wet, 

 and covered with a wire-screen, its value to the gardener can 

 be approximately estimated. Cut-worms, cabbage-worms, and 

 other kinds of destructive insects may be collected and put in 

 the box. The species and numbers of these that the toad will 

 devour may be observed. Almost everything that crawls or 

 flies, if not too large, will be filliped into its mouth almost 

 too quickly for the eve to follow. It has been estimated by 

 an observer, who kept count of the number of insects that a 

 toad ate during a few days, that it requires about 10,000 grubs 

 and insects to support a toad during a season. 



Feeding and Hiding. — The toad can be studied in the home- 

 garden and in confinement at the school-house. Its method 

 of catching a fly by everting its tongue, which is attached at the 

 front and is free behind, never fails to interest young or old. 

 Its concealment by partially burying itself in the soil in the 

 day-time gives the opportunity of studying its method of 

 digging. It buries itself to a considerable depth to hibernate 

 during the winter. It digs with its hind legs and pushes its 

 body backwards into the hole. All these operations may be 

 observed in the toad-box at the school-house. 



Casting its Skin. — There is another interesting operation 

 that may take place in the box where the well-fed toad is 

 confined, but which maybe missed even by the most assiduous 

 observer, that is ' the casting of the skin.' Human skin is 

 continually coming off in little flakes; snakes shed their skin 

 all in a piece, and insect larvre similarly shed their skin when 

 it gets too small for them. What about the toad 1 When its 

 outside skin gets too tight and dry, a new skin grows under- 

 neath it. When the new growth is complete the old skin 

 cracks along the back while the toad keeps twisting and 



