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THE AMERICAS NATURALIST [Vol. XLIII 



(//. platirhutas), the striped water snake (R. leberis), 

 the common garter snake (T. sirtalis), and the spotted 

 water snake (N. sipedon). The common garter snake 

 and the spotted water snake are reported also as feeding 

 on tadpoles. 



Some of the game fish feed npon frogs and, pre- 

 sumably, they take toads also. Perhaps many toads are 

 thus destroyed during the spawning season. "We have 

 reason to think that fishes feeding on insects and small 

 fish devour tadpoles also. In pond no. 4 eggs were laid 

 by the thousands and a large per cent, of them hatched, 

 but not a single toad emerged. By the twenty-fourth of 

 May not more than 200 tadpoles of the first laying re- 

 mained and a few days later not one was to be found. 

 There are fishes and crayfishes in this pond and the 

 probabilities are that they destroyed the tadpoles. 



Boys are very destructive to toads in the spawning 

 season. This spring no less than one hundred and ten 

 toads were killed about ponds nos. 1, 3 and 4. In 1897 

 Dr. Hodge records as one day's count two hundred dead 

 about pond no. 4, and also that two boys had killed and 

 carried away 300 from the same pond the day before. 



Judging from my experiments, many toads die during 

 the winter. As stated in the chapter on hibernation, 

 sixty toads varying in size from 2 to 55 grams were put 

 out in cages in the fall. Neglecting those under five 

 urams (which I have reason to think escaped before cold 

 weather) there were left fifty-one, of which only fourteen 

 came out alive in the spring. This is a loss of 72.5 per 

 cent., which surely must be above normal. However, 

 further experiments and observations lead me to think 

 that toads are killed if completely frozen. January 30, 

 I permitted a toad 6.5 cm. long to bury itself in a cage 

 containing a mixture of moist clay and loam. The cage 

 was then subjected to a temperature of — 10° F. for 

 twenty-four hours. At the end of this time the toad 

 was frozen solid, and when thawed out showed no signs 



