Reptiles and Batrachians of the Edinburgh District. 513 
a warm summer evening, after a copious fall of rain, and 
while everything is yet dripping with moisture, toads are 
often to be seen in considerable numbers flopping along 
the wet roads, more especially in woodland districts; but 
we must visit the ponds, ete., in which they spawn in 
spring, if we would form a proper estimate of their 
abundance—hundreds may then be seen in an old flooded 
quarry, for instance, not more than a few score yards in 
circumference. 
In ordinary seasons the Toad spawns about the middle of 
April, that is, about three weeks later than the Frog. My 
dates (with the exception aftermentioned) extend from the 
6th to the 27th, the last referring to an upland habitat near 
Balerno. No sooner have the frogs disappeared from view 
than the toads make their appearance in the ponds, and 
reproduce the busy scenes so lately enacted by their relatives. 
Visit one of our rural curling-ponds, say, on a bright day, 
about the middle of March, and you will find it alive with 
frogs ; revisit it two to three weeks later and you will be 
interested to see that the croaking throng is now made 
up entirely of toads. The transposition is so complete, and 
the general appearance of the two animals while living in 
the water so much more alike than usual, that the casual 
observer is apt to overlook the change which has taken 
place. Unlike the frog, the toad looks its best during the 
short time it takes to the water in spring. The general 
colour is then brighter, and the markings more distinct. It - 
seems also to prefer deeper water to spawn in than the frog ; 
at any rate I have seldom observed it spawning in such 
shallow ditches and surface pools as the latter often 
resorts to. 
As has just been said, the breeding-time of the Common 
Toad falls normally about the middle of April. It was, 
therefore, with no little astonishment that I found a pair in 
a deep pool in an old limestone quarry at Longniddry, Kast 
Lothian, in the very act of spawning so far on in the season 
as the 13th of June (1894). The couple were brought away 
and placed in my aquarium, where the remainder of the 
spawn was desposited. Several other males were swimming 
