TOADS AND FROGS 



to earn a living on dry land. The greater 

 number were but tadpoles last time they were 

 in that water. However, they do find their 

 way back, and the only answer we can make to 

 the question, how do they do it ? is to say by 

 instinct ! Which is not a really good answer, for 

 we know so little about how instinct works that 

 it is much like saying that we do not know. 



At any rate we know that a common impulse 

 sets all the toads over a wide district travelling 

 to one particular piece of water; that many 

 meet with mishaps by the way, being run over 

 by carts, trodden on by cattle and horses, etc., 

 etc., but a very great number arrive safe and 

 sound. This past spring I tried to estimate 

 how many there were in the ponds just men- 

 tioned, but they defied all coiinting. There 

 were many thousands ; the water seemed alive 

 with them, and no one who had not seen them 

 could have believed that there were so many 

 toads in the district. Now frogs when spawn- 

 ing are very shy, diving to the bottom of the 

 water the second any one comes near, but the 

 toads, secure in their nastiness, are not so shy, 

 but float about on the surface, singing until the 

 air is filled with their croaks. It seems strange 

 to speak of the croaking of toads as singing, 



105 



