22 ON THE HABITS OF BRITISH FROGS AND TOADS. 



France, and Belgium, falls within the last days of March and 

 the first days of April, and, with the exception of severe frosty 

 weather, which rarely occui-s at that season, irrespective of the 

 temperature. Then certain ponds or deep flooded quarries will 

 be found alive with hundreds or thousands of toads which have 

 congregated from the neighbourhood, often from a radius of half a 

 mile or more. Thither all the toads have travelled with remark- 

 able directness, passing other ponds or ditches of which they 

 might avail themselves were it not for the instinct which leads 

 them to select a place oifering all guarantees for the successful 

 rearing of their progeny. If a male meets a female en route, he 

 vigorously clasps her under the axils and accomplishes the rest of 

 the journey on her back. Much of the travelling takes place at 

 night, but individuals are also met with in the daytime, hopping 

 along towards the meeting-place. If a high road should run not 

 far from the pond which is the rendezvous, numbers of crushed 

 corpses of toads, run over by motor-cars or other vehicles, will be 

 found for a distance of perhaps two or three hundred yards, the 

 crushed toads being more and more numerous as the road nears 

 the pond. 



If pairing toads are taken from the place selected by them for 

 spawning, and removed to a neighbouring garden with a small 

 artificial pond in which, we should think, they might comfortably 

 conclude their breeding- operations, they will often leave and 

 start off in the direction whence they were brought. It does not 

 matter to them whether this be up or down hill. 



Some years ago I made an experiment on the instinct of 

 orientation in this toad. I took a number of pairing individuals 

 out of a pond frequented by the species, which was only a short 

 distance from another in which frogs spawn but to which toads 

 never resort. I turned them loose on a monticule midway betvreen 

 the two pondSj from which neither could be seen, and watched 

 their movements. All, after a little hesitation or after a few 

 hops in the opposite direction, took the right orientation and 

 made their way straight towards the pond whence they had 

 been taken. I experimented on single individuals, on paii^s, and 

 on groups of individuals, with the same resvdt. In this case, it 

 was evident that the toads were not influenced by hygroscopic 

 sensations, since there was water in both directions. ^Whether 

 the sounds uttered by their fellows in the pond were a guidance 

 to them, seems to me doubtful, considering the very feeble 

 voice of the Common Toad, the males of which, as is well known, 

 are devoid of vocal sacs ; if so, it would denote a very acute 

 sense of hearing in toads. I am, however, convinced, from other 

 observations, that even at a greater distance, from which no 

 such sounds could be heard, the toads would have taken the 

 right direction. 



I strongly recommend the Common Toad as the most suitable 

 Batrachian on which to institute series of experiments on 

 distant orientation. 



