SCOUTING FOR GIRLS 
425 
wild birds have difficulty in finding suitable places to 
bathe. Artificial bird baths are more attractive to 
birds in the summer time than during cold weather, but 
they will be used even in winter if kept free from ice. 
Do not place a bird bath so close to a shrub, tree, or 
building that a house cat may stalk the birds from be- 
hind it. The house cat is probably the worst enemy of 
our native songbirds. 
Third, by establishing feeding stations, especially in 
winter when snow covers the natural food of so many 
birds. When birds have enough to eat they rarely 
suffer severely from the cold. 
Fourth, by cooperating with the authorities in seeing 
that the laws protecting the birds are enforced. 
The Audubon Society has done much effective work 
along these lines, and a Girl Scout should join this society, 
whose headquarters are 1974 Broadway, New York 
City. 
Amphibians 
All nature is so full that that district produces 
the greatest variety which is most examined. 
— Gilbert White , Natural History of Selborne. 
The group of back-boned animals next above the fishes 
is the Amphibians, which includes the frogs, toads, sala- 
manders,* and their relatives. The name “amphibian” 
refers to two modes of life as shown by most of the 
frogs and toads. A good example is the Common Toad, 
whose eggs are laid in the water. These eggs hatch out 
not into toads, but into tadpoles, which have no legs and 
which breathe by means of gills, as the fishes do. They 
grow rapidly, develop a pair of hind legs and then a pair 
^Unfortunately in the Southern States there is an entirely 
different animal commonly called a “Salamander” which is in 
reality a pocket-gopher of the group of mammals. 
