The Zoologist— September, 1869. 1833 



gallery : vvlieie there are no stones or other convenient shelter, toads 

 make long galleries in earth or clay, and sometimes even occupy the 

 excavation of a sand martin, the entrance to which could only 

 be reached by perseveringly climbing an almost perpendicular surface. 

 From these cells the toads emerge at night to feed, always returning 

 to their retreat long before day dawn. This habit must, I think, have 

 led to the innumerable accounts we find in newspapers of toads in 

 stone, accounts which it would be quite as unwise to deny as to 

 believe. The utmost that naturalists can do with a view to stem what 

 might be called the tide of public opinion which flows so strongly in 

 favour of these supposed miracles, is to ask the narrators for such 

 evidence as would stand the investigation of a judicial inquiry: to 

 such an inquiry no truthful mind can object. 



The toad either crawls with great deliberation or if pursued moves 

 forward by a series of merry but rather awkward jumps, never leaping 

 to any great distance like the frog. It is curious how authors copy 

 from one another without deigning to think or observe for themselves. 

 All our naturalists have copied the popular fallacy that toads crawl 

 but do not leap. 



In the spring, toads — at least those to which the duty of continuing 

 their race is entrusted — resort to the water for the purpose of spawn- 

 ing : the spawn is deposited in long double series, like necklaces com- 

 posed of minute black beads strung on a transparent thread : these I 

 have often observed stretching like network among aquatic plants in 

 April and May. The tadpoles are much smaller and darker coloured 

 than those of the frog : they also remain in the water much later in the 

 year. 



The torpidity of the toad is a favourite subject with natural 

 historians, but scarcely rests on that sure foundation which the prac- 

 tical naturalist requires. There is no doubt that toads have been 

 found in a frozen state during winter, and therefore perfectly motion- 

 less, but there is no evidence that the identical individuals so found 

 have returned to a state of life and activity ; again, toads have often 

 been found, and indeed may commonly be found, deep within their 

 galleries in the severest frosts, but when exhumed nothing like torpidity 

 has been observed; so that the evidence of a fact so universally 

 asserted seems very insuflficient. 



In ' Ilardwicke's Science Gossip,' a work in which a world of 

 Natural History information has been published, there are some 



SECOND SERIES — VOL. IV. 2 Y 



