286 NATURE STUDY AND LIFE 



possible, for a number of reasons. First, the retiring and 

 wholly inoffensive nature of the animal could not consti- 

 tute it any such plague as we already have in many species 

 of insects that it destroys. As it is nocturnal, even its 

 proverbial ugliness is not conspicuous. Its powers of 

 locomotion are so limited that it could be easily caught 

 and destroyed, if that should ever become necessary. 

 Finally, its natural food supply, consisting wholly of 

 insects, worms, slugs, and the like, would inevitably set 

 a natural limit to its increase.^ 



We have before us an example of the plasticity of one of 

 nature's mechanisms. A toad can live a year, or even 

 two, in apparent comfort, without any food whatever, but 

 no eggs will be produced. If food be abundant, it will eat 

 voraciously and produce eggs in great numbers, possibly 

 twice a year.^ Every such plastic living mechanism is a 

 bow bent back, and wherever its force is beneficent we 

 should be careful to keep it bent so that its spring will be 

 able to do the greatest good possible at any opportune 

 moment. 



" However useful they may be," one teacher remarked, 

 " a toad is such an ugly, disgusting creature we never can 

 use it in school." This is tradition, against which it is 



^ Destruction of honeybees is about the only damage toads could do, 

 should they become too numerous. But as bees are not nocturnal and 

 are not much on the ground, this danger is imaginary. 



2 In some seasons toads are found in considerable numbers laying eggs 

 in July. These may be belated individuals, but I am inclined to think 

 that they are laying a. second time. Celia Thaxter's experience supports 

 this view, for her toads, brought to the Shoals in June, filled the island 

 vyith little toads the same summer. They must have laid once before their 

 importation. 



