94 BIRD PARADISE 



Wonderful how they pass through the winter 

 months and apparently make some healthy 

 growth. I never have been able to discover the 

 slightest indication that they enjoy social con- 

 verse with their fellows. All my toad tenants 

 live a hermit life, and they secure the character 

 which that kind of living gives. They have a 

 taste for the flies and bugs which infest a garden, 

 and I encourage all their forays into my small 

 realm. 



It is surprising how expert they are in catching 

 flies. It is about the only quick motion they 

 make, and the only member they use in perform- 

 ing the feat is their long, flexible tongue. Let 

 the fly pass within striking distance and the stroke 

 comes — a flash of red, which surely reaches the 

 game every time. In a stage ranch in Oklahoma 

 I saw the feat performed by a large toad again 

 and again. I was sitting in the old cabin par- 

 taking of a frugal lunch when this huge toad 

 came out of his lair and showed me how he se- 

 cured his lunch. The flies were present in full 

 force — clouds of them. All the fellow had to do 

 was to keep his tongue flashing — a fly, and I 

 sometimes thought two, secured every time. He 

 spent what seemed to him a very agreeable half 

 hour, and it was a revelation to the parson, — the 



