The American Toad 



The American toads are in the ponds from late April until 

 July. They may appear much earlier if the spring is early. The 

 males — who alone do the singing — are the first arrivals. Dur- 

 ing a large part of these months they sing both day and night. 

 If the season is unduly cold, they may be silent for days or weeks 

 together, reappearing on the return of a higher temperature. 



The eggs which are laid' in long curling masses (Figs. 33 

 and 36), (likely to be tangled among the waterweeds and stretched 

 from object to object in secluded, shallow parts of the pond), 

 are black above and white underneath. They are arranged in 

 a single row, in a transparent jelly-like mass cylindrical in shape, 

 and are fertilised in the water as they are laid. The toads may 

 be removed from the pond to an artificial one, and the eggs will 

 be laid as though there had been no disturbance. (Fig. 32.) 



The jelly-like substance about the eggs is scarcely visible 

 when the eggs are first laid, but it swells in contact with the 

 water until it becomes very conspicuous. Perfectly clean and 

 transparent in the beginning, it soon becomes discoloured by 

 the sediment of the water until one may look directly at coils of 

 the eggs and not see them, because of their resemblance to debris 

 at the bottom of the pond. 



The eggs are small (less than i^ mm. in diameter). Their 

 number is incredibly high. Various layings counted have yielded 

 between four and twelve thousand eggs each. If the eggs are 

 laid early, the development is comparatively slow. But if the 

 eggs are laid later, when the temperature is more steadily high, 

 or if they are kept in the warm atmosphere of the house, the 

 development is remarkably rapid. 



Those figured here were laid Friday, June 12, 1903, indoors. 

 They were photographed on Saturday, twenty-four hours later, 

 when they were very much increased in size and all the fertilised 

 eggs were entirely black. (Fig. 33.) 



Monday they were photographed again. (Fig. 34.) The 

 jelly-mass is now much less solid; the coils are straightening, but 

 still hold their cylindrical shape. The eggs are no longer eggs, 

 but young tadpoles in which head and tail are easily distinguished. 

 What is our surprise twenty-four hours later — just four days 



•April 14, 1890; April 6, 1891. Baltimore, Md. T. H. Morgan. 



Bufo americanus breeds in April and May, sometimes in July. C. F. Hodge, Worcester, 

 Mass. 



67 



