TERRARIA AND AQUA-TERRARIA 





They exhude pun- 

 gent acrid secretions 

 as a method of defense. 

 They are extremely use- 

 ful creatures devouring 

 all kinds of insect vermin, 

 1^ snails and worms, their 

 food being every creep- 

 ing and flying thing 

 small enough to swallow. 

 One observer notes that 

 a single toad ate 24 cat- 

 erpillars in 10 minutes 

 and another 35 celery 

 worms in three hours, 

 and estimated that a good 

 sized toad will destroy 

 The illustration of the 



FIG. 239 



10,000 insects and worms in a single summer 

 metamorphosis of the common American Hoptoad, Bufo lentiginosis, 

 (Shaw), Fig. 239, is taken from the Nature Study leaflets of the Cornell 

 University College of Agriculture and shows the life history of the toad 

 and the devastation wrought by its enemies, as of probably 1000 eggs 

 and tadpoles but one or two toads survive to the adult stage. 



The toad is common to almost all parts of the United States. It 

 rapidly passes through all the stages of development from tadpole to 

 maturity, and its usefulness to the agriculturist should afford it better 

 protection. A rarer form, the Burrowing Toad or Spade Foot, Sacphiopus 

 holbrooki (Har.) is a smaller extremely noisy toad, which burrows in the 

 ground. 



In the aquarium toad tadpoles are less beneficial than those of the 

 frog as their change to the adult form is briefer. 



Tree Toads. The most generally distributed tree toads and tree frogs 

 are the Common Tree Toad or Tree Squeak, Hyla versicolor (Le Conte), 

 inhabiting the Eastern part of the United States, and having a body 

 length of 2 inches; the smaller Pickering's Tree Frog, Hyla pickeringii 

 (Hoi.) about I inch in length; the Common or Swamp Tree Frog, 

 Chorophilis nigritus (Le Conte); the Savannah Cricket Frog, Acris gryllus 

 (Hoi.), the Green Tree Frog, Hyla arborea (Hoi.); and the Changeable or 

 Chameleon Tree Frog, Hyla chameleonis, (Hoi.), which possesses the 

 capacity of changing its tints to such extent that its color cannot be de- 

 finitely described. 



336 



