a shower ; but I have stood on Mauricetown 

 Bridge, when the big drops came pelting down, 

 and seen those drops apparently turn into tiny 

 toads as they struck the planks, until the bridge 

 was alive with them ! Perhaps they had been 

 hiding from the heat between the cracks of the 

 planks— but there are people who believe that 

 they came down from the clouds. 



How, again, shall I explain this bit of obseiva- 

 tion? More than six years I lived near a mud- 

 hole that dried up in July. I jiassed it almost 

 daily. One spring there was a strange toad-call 

 in the hole, a call that I had never heard any- 

 thing like before— a deafening, agonizing roar, 

 hoarse and woeful. I found on investigation that 

 the water was moving with spade-foot toads. 

 Two days later the hole was still ; every toad 

 was gone. They disappeared ; and though I 

 ke^it that little puddle under watch for several 

 seasons after that, I have not known a spade -foot 

 to aj)pear there since. 



The water was almost jellied with their spawn, 



and a little later was swarming with spade-foot 



tadpoles. Then it began to dry up, and some of 



the tadpoles were left stranded in the deep foot- 



[319] 



