May, 1914 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
361 
tant point because the eggs of frogs are in 
round masses. Toads’ eggs are easily found, 
as they are usually laid in shallow pools. They 
quickly hatch, and the tadpoles must rush 
through the change to the pygmy toadlet, as 
the pool dries up within five or six weeks. In 
an aquarium the egg strings are seen to con¬ 
tain rows of black pellets. These uncoil and 
break forth as tadpoles. Within a few weeks 
the toad pollywogs have undergone a change 
that takes the frog tadpoles that many months. 
Nor do the pollvwogs’ bodies grow larger than 
the end pea in a pod. The border of the pool 
teems with little toads—many thousands of 
them. 
They struggle to reach the summits of the 
pebbles to survey the world; others fight their 
way through the jungle of grass blades, while 
colonies cluster here and there, making the 
earth appear blotched with their myriads. 
Right here begins the balancing of nature’s 
scales. Barely ten per cent, of these little toads 
attain the dignity of the warty garden variety. 
The slaughter at once commences. Some 
leopard frogs that have daringly chosen the 
temporary pool as a breeding ground and 
This is the sort of a place the toad takes for his home. If vou have not some damp holes beneath 
tree stumps, make him a miniature cave beneath a board. A pan of water would be appreciated, too 
The comparative sizes of frog and toad tadpoles; the tadpoles in the upper row are 
The miniature size of the young toad makes him a prey for many enemies 
linger near its edge, are gorging themselves on their infant allies. 
Carnivorous beetles are already at work, and the ribbon and the 
garter snakes are frenziedly starting their first gorge. All these 
troubles are occurring within sight of the tadpoles’ aquatic 
cradle. 
The wanderings of the weak creatures produce further destruc¬ 
tion. Many are dried into mere cinders by meandering into sun¬ 
baked hollows without trace of moisture; birds are on the alert 
for such tidbits; there are trap-like pitfalls with no escape, and 
final starvation, and at last a few aimless wanderers of the former 
great army of baby toads find crevices in the soil that are properly 
moist and where food is to be had. Here the wanderlust ceases 
and the toad is at home. Growth is not rapid. At the end of his 
first year the youngster is barely an inch long. A favorite toad 
home is under a boardwalk in a garden, where the toad hollows 
out a cell, and in it squats flat during the day. At dusk the hunt 
begins. In places like this toads return year after year, be¬ 
coming tame enough to hop up and feed from one’s fingers. 
It is difficult to give proper credit to our friend, the toad. 
As an insect destroyer he holds first honors. For the 
greater part of the night the search for insect prey con¬ 
tinues, and it ends only after a gorge, followed by rapid 
digestion and renewed appetite on the morrow. No better 
protection for the garden exists than a colony of toads. 
Unfortunately, through necessary improvement of drain¬ 
age, the breeding places of toads are being rapidly re¬ 
moved, and toads are becoming rare over large areas, and 
in places have altogether disappeared. To continue this 
race of truly economic creatures it might be well to have 
shallow, concrete basins constructed as breeding places for 
them. When the young toads have completed their trans¬ 
formation from the tadpole stage these basins could be 
drained ofif, or otherwise, in mosquito time, they might 
breed millions of the undesired. 
As an illustration of the appetites of toads, the writer 
remembers a rather tragic experience during his insect- 
frogs. collecting experiences. We were in a stony region search¬ 
ing for a rare species of beetle that lived under flat rocks. 
The value of this beetle to the professional collector was 
high. We turned over enough rocks to build a fort, and, while we 
found the broken wing cases of several long-dead examples, our 
efforts were otherwise unsuccessful. During our hunt we came 
across several dozen big toads, and a novel suggestion came from 
a member of our party. It was to gather a number of toads at 
night, mercifully kill them and 
search their stomachs for the cov¬ 
eted specimens. This we did. Un¬ 
less the hunt had been for the pur¬ 
pose of filling gaps in the collec¬ 
tion of a great educational insti¬ 
tution, the writer would not 
shamelessly describe our rather 
murderous work, but it resulted 
in finding five specimens of the 
prize in the stomachs of our am- 
