BUFONIDAE 



175 



year and two weeks all the toads enclosed in the latter block 

 were of course found dead and decomposed, but most of those in 

 the porous block were still alive, with their eyes open, and did 

 not succumb to starvation until eighteen months of confinement. 

 These poor creatures could of course not move about, and were 

 practically undergoing enforced continuous hibernation. Other- 

 wise they would soon have wasted away and have died within 

 six months. Those which tumble into deep and dry wells remain 

 rather small, but generally manage to keep alive for years on 

 the spiders, woodlice, earwigs and other insects which likewise 

 tumble in. 



Toads hibernate far from the water in dry holes or clefts, retir- 

 ing in the middle of October in Central Europe, and they do not 

 reappear before March. Soon after, and this depends naturally 

 upon the season, they congregate in ponds or pools, and the 

 males, which far outnumber the females, for whom they fight, 

 make a peculiar little noise, something like the whining, bleat of 

 a lamb, uttering this sound day and night. The male having, 

 after much wrestling with competitors, secured a female, which 

 is often several times bigger than himself, clasps her tightly, by 

 pressing his fists into the armpits, and the pair swim or crawl 

 about in this position sometimes for a week before the spawning 

 takes place. The number of eggs laid at one sitting is enormous, 

 varying from 2000 to 7000. They are very small, only 1-5-2-0 

 mm. in diameter, and are expelled in two double rows or strings, 

 one coming out of each oviduct. These strings consist of a soft 

 gelatinous mass, in which the double rows of entirely black eggs are 

 imbedded, and they measure in the swollen condition about 6 mm-, 

 or ^ inch in diameter, and from 10 to 15 feet in length. The 

 strings are wound round and between water-plants by the parents, 

 which move about during the laying and fertilising process. 

 According to the coldness or warmth of the season the larvae are 

 hatched in about a fortnight, and for the next few days they hang 

 on to the dissolving gelatinous mass of the egg-strings. They then 

 leave the slime and fasten themselves by means of their suckers 

 to the under side of grasses and water-plants or sticks, with 

 their tails hanging downwards, still in a rudimentary condition, 

 but henceforth progressing rapidly. 



Fischer-Sigwart ^ found the time of development as follows : 



1 Zool. Garten, 1885, p. 299. 



