Reptiles. 321 



Notes on a species of Toad. The annexed is copied from a diary Icept in Dorset- 

 shire, near Poole, on the coast, and communicated to me as follows. " My attention 

 some years back (1826) was attracted in the month of March, and again in autumn, to 

 the migration of a numerous army of a species of toad (which I believe to be distinct 

 and not yet described) from their hibernal quarters to their breeding localities. Their 

 course lay across a heath and moor, and could be traced by the fragments of their bo- 

 dies left by the rats and birds of prey, which molested them on their route. The dis- 

 tance was two miles, and there was no pond nearer, except such as were subject to be 

 dried up. They travelled in a direct line. These annual migrations continued until 

 1835, when, having purchased a portion of the heath and bog, I cut a canal through 

 the latter from the sea across their line of march. In crossing this canal in the spring 

 I found large quantities of toads dead in it, probably from the effects of the salt wa- 

 ter, for I afterwards found by experiment that they lived but a very short time in sea- 

 water: many more died on their return, and they never attempted the journey after I 

 accidentally discovered their winter quarters, which were in an old sand-pit. On look- 

 ing into this pit one day in the early part of November, I was surprised to see a num- 

 ber of toads, and a vast quantity of loose sand in motion. On turning it over with a 

 spade, I found numbers of toads working themselves further into it. The sand in its 

 natural bed is replete with thin laminae of hardened sand. I observed several of the 

 larger toads climbing the perpendicular side of the sand-pit by clinging to these la- 

 minae by their claws, some to the height of three feet from the bottom. When they 

 found two laminae sufficiently wide apart to suit their purpose, which they appear to 

 determine by feeling with their fore legs, they proceeded to rake out tl^e soft sand with 

 one hand, while they held on by the other, relieving themselves by changing hands : 

 in this way they soon effected a lodgement, and then rapidly worked in out of sight, 

 turning the sand they excavated behind them, and thus burying themselves to the 

 depth of eighteen inches from the face. In the spring they came out, leaving their 

 holes open, which were taken possession of by the martius {Hirundo riparia). Next 

 year the sand-pit was filled up, and I do not know where their winter quarters now 

 are. Being obliged to abandon their summer quarters in consequence of the obstruc- 

 tion by the canal, they located themselves in two pools, both subject to dry up, within 

 two hundred yards of their winter quarters, and near to my house, which they still fre- 

 quent, though they have changed their winter haunts, and I have had an opportunity 

 of repeatedly observing them. I always kept a sharp look out for my old friends, the 

 toads, and was much pleased, on Sunday morning, the 26th of January, 1840, as I re- 

 turned from church past one of the pools, at J o'clock, P.M., the sun shining most 

 beautifully, to see the whole surface studded with their brilliant gold-encircled eyes : 

 they were not in sight when I passed three hours before. I looked attentively at them 

 for five minutes, when, making a little noise with my stick, they all disappeared as if 

 by magic. Not a particle of spawn was to be seen. From this time I visited them 

 daily ; on the following day, the 27th, a quantity of spawn was floating on the water, 

 and not many toads were to be seen : by the 30th not a toad was visible in the pond. 

 On the 18th of February, the first young tadpoles made their appearance, it was a very 

 cold easterly wind : on the 19th, weather the same, many more tadpoles were to be 

 seen. The weather, which, previously to the 17th, had been warm, with wind at south 

 west, now became exceedingly cold, and the wind north east. On the 20th, the tad- 

 poles became torpid ; ice was the eighth of an inch thick over the spawn that had not 

 vivified, but on no other part of the pool, nor over the tadpoles. 21 st, pool frozen 



Y 



