Fishiiig in North Carolina. 169 



do his level best to get it into the guard-house, 

 and would try again and again, only giving it 

 up as a bad job after effort became hopeless. 



The toad-frog is a harmless creature, travel- 

 ing chiefly at night, or coming out of its hiding 

 place after showers are over, in search of small 

 insects. Doctors are thinking, one hundred 

 years from now, of employing the frog in its 

 own habitat, stagnant pools, to catch mosquitoes 

 and other germ toters — an occupation the frog 

 has been engaged in on its own account during 

 the past 9,437 years, with no humanitarian pur- 

 pose, possibly, yet for the stomach's sake. 



During the summer the toad stays under cover 

 in sunlight, and he goes into earth to spend the 

 winter. It is enormously prolific, and while I 

 have often wondered why so few reappear the 

 next spring, yet like the house-fly, nature pro- 

 vides enough of them to keep the stock at or 

 above par. 



As I hinted, it is the best sort of a turtle bait, 

 but I am now writing on the side of the frog. 

 While the turtle is cruel, and has an awful grip, 

 yet he is put here for some purpose ; he kills and 



