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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIII 



Wilcox, that a toad ate twenty-four fourth moult gypsy 

 moth larvae in ten minutes ; again, on authority of F. H. 

 Mosher, that a toad ate thirty to thirty-five full-grown 

 celery worms in three hours at intervals of about twenty 

 minutes. Eighty-six house flies are recorded by Dr. C. F. 

 Hodge as being snapped up in less than ten minutes. 

 Dr. J. R. Slonaker fed an eighty-grain toad all the beef- 

 steak and flies it would eat for two days. On the first 

 day, December 7, it ate 2.S grams of beefsteak and three 

 flies; on the second, 3 grams of beefsteak and twelve flies. 

 From further feeding he concluded that his toad would 

 eat on an average forty flies per day. 



A. H. Kirkland, H. Garman and F. A. Hartman have 

 given us much valuable information on the food of the 

 toad from careful analyses of stomach contents. Kirk- 

 land examined one hundred and forty-nine stomachs col- 

 lected from April to September, of which he gives the fol- 

 ing as a fair specimen. The toad was killed at 9 :00 p.m. 

 May 11, 1896, and found to contain: "9 ants (C. Ptnnsyl- 

 Viuiivus), 6 cutworms, 5 myriapods (Julius sp.), 6 sow- 

 bugs (Parcello sp. ?), 1 weevel {Ilijlobius pales) and 1 

 carabid beetle ( Pterastichus sp. ? )• ' ' ; total 28. Kirkland 's 

 report shows that 84 per cent, of the toad's food consists 

 of 28 per cent, lepidopterous insects and their larvae, 27 

 per cent, beetles, 19 per cent, ants, 10 per cent, myriapods. 

 The insects alone were represented by eighty species. 



The live records which follow are those of Garman. 



No. 20, a toad P 8 inch long, obtained «. u the Experiment Farm, 



patch, Lexington, Aug. 5, 1890, had 

 ger beetle, 1 corn root-worm beetle, 



