1925] Storer: A Synopsis of the Amphibia of California 197 
niches in the rocks during the daytime and came forth only at night, 
when they might venture as much as fifty feet from the water (Grin- 
ned, MS). In Death Valley (Grinned, MS) the species inhabits the 
irrigation ditches about Furnace Creek Ranch. Probably under orig- 
inal conditions there, it lived in the springs and overdow water from 
the springs. In a canon of the Turtle Mountains, Camp (1916a, 
p. 512) found recently metamorphosed young toads huddled together 
in the crevices of planks about a pool and in wet sand nearby. Stone 
and Rehn in New Mexico (1903, p. 34) found two toads in a spring. 
Strecker (1915, p. 51) in Texas found many individuals under large 
flat stones in the bed of a small rock -bound creek. 
Engelhardt (1917, p. 6) found Bufo punctatus at the Grand 
Canon, Arizona, on June 9, 1916, in numbers. He says: 
Bufo 'punctatus, without doubt, is the most abundant of Batrachians in the 
Canyon, yet so secretive and strictly nocturnal is this toad, that none are likely 
to be encountered, except after dark. During the one night spent in the Canyon 
its call, mingling with that of Hyla arenicolor, was the dominant sound of animal 
life. Search for the toads with an acetylene lamp revealed such numbers that no 
attempt was made to count them. There w r ere hundreds — many on the trail and 
many more in the shallow pools in the Indian Garden. None were seen mating, 
but their small black tadpoles, not exceeding half an inch in length, were swarm- 
ing along the margin of the stream. Breeding evidently had taken place during 
May. 
Of the notes of the adults he says: “. . . The call, though loud, is 
not harsh and consists of a series of deep, whistling notes, repeated at 
short intervals.” 
Strecker (1922, pp. 10-11) saj^s that Bufo punctatus 
. . . is closely related to Bufo debilis but its habits are different from those of that 
species. Debilis prefers open country, usually mesquite-covered flats, and breeds 
in ditches and wayside pools. Punctatus is partial to rocky localities, especially 
high bluffs enclosing small streams. Here [central Texas] it breeds in rockbound 
pools. I have found specimens under rocks on the tops of cave-lined bluffs during 
the excessive heat of midsummer. 
Van Denburgh and Slevin (1921, p. 54) state that at San Antonio in 
the Sierra Laguna Mountains of Lower California forty-six specimens 
of Bufo punctatus were taken around the public square of the village 
during the early evening (of one day?). 
The voice of Bufo punctatus is described as “a long continued 
clear trill, resembling that of a hearth cricket but with more volume 7 ’ 
(Grinnell, MS) ; Van Denburgh and Slevin ( loc . cit. ) say that at San 
Antonio, Lower California, the toads were heard calling late into the 
evening. A specimen captured there was observed to make a shrill 
