THE 



AMERICAN NATURALIST 



Vol. XLIII November, 1909 No. 515 



THE AMERICAN TOAD (BUFO LENTIGINOSIS 

 AMERICANUS, LeCONTE) 



A Study in Dynamic Biology 

 NEWTON MILLER 

 Clark University 

 Introduction 



For some years it lias been my desire to inaugurate a 

 series of university theses aimed distinctively at study- 

 ing important American species as forces in nature. 

 This kind of work has seemed to me logically the next 

 step in the advance of American natural history. to 

 fact, it is hard to imagine any other line of real advance 

 possible. Species are not discovered, determined, named 

 and classified for the mere sake of making it possible for 

 people to learn their names. 



No matter how common the species, when we ask the 



^Tiat ^sWon^oerit^p^in the vital "organization 

 of American natural history? What are its relations 

 to human interests? In short, what expression have 

 we of the species as a force in nature? When we ask 

 these questions of the commonest animals, we find our- 

 selves almost as near the verge of human knowledge as 

 with an undiscovered species. No less a man than Dar- 

 win himself led off in the field of dynamic biology with 

 his study of "Earthworms and Vegetable Mould/' A 

 641 



