Part 15

The Toad has the homing faculty well developed. By the judicious wriggling of his hind quarters he scoops out a hollow in the soil, preferably under a root or stone, so that he can lie without being conspicuous. In the evening he sets out hunting, and may travel some distance; but before morning he is back snugly in his form, where he may be found during the day for many months. A similar sense of locality--"orientation" the naturalists call it--is manifested in the choice of ponds for breeding. Any chance pool, however temporary in character, will serve the Frog, but the Toad is more particular and has special requirements for a nursery. Any one who has observed our batrachians during a series of years must have noticed that scores of Toads may be seen in early spring, all converging upon a particular pond, perhaps passing some other piece of water that looks quite suitable for their purpose. In a garden where we kept a portion wild as cover for many of the smaller animals, we had a considerable number of Frogs and Toads that had come there voluntarily. A small pond was freely visited by them, together with Newts, an occasional snake and stray aquatic birds. The Frogs and Newts bred there every year; the Toads never. In a field two or three hundred yards beyond our boundary was a large deep pond that had formerly been a brickmaker's pit, but the suitable earth being exhausted it had been allowed to fill with water. To this pond Toads came in the spring from all quarters. On a mild moist evening when the great impulse took possession of the Toads, we used to see scores of them hopping across a well-used road that divided the grasslands, and next morning would see the lifeless bodies of many that had been flattened out by motor-wheels in the dark. On the further side of the pond the continuity of the grassland was again broken by a railway line, and here you would see them hopping across the track and climbing over the rails, many, of course, meeting fate in the adventure.

In our present neighbourhood there is a large pond fed by springs from the plateau gravels of an extensive common. In the days of our boyhood there was open grassland and copse between the common and the pond with only an ordinary hedge to mark that it was private land. At the present time the pond forms a fine piece of ornamental water in a private garden, and on all sides residential roads surround it. Yet this pond must have been a Toads' breeding place in the old days, for in the spring we find Toads on the tarred sidewalks of the roads seeking for gaps in the fence through which they may reach the desired trysting place; and we have sometimes put them in the way of finding it. It is very probable that in such cases the Toads are making their way back to the identical pond in which they first saw the light--a corollary to the case of the migrant birds that find their way back to build their nests in the copse or hedgerow where they were hatched.

The small, black eggs of the Toad differ from those of the Frogs in the fact that they form a double row embedded in a gelatinous string ten to fifteen feet in length. Like those of the Frog the eggs by imbibing water swell to three times their original size. The strings are wound about the stems of water-weeds by the movements of their parents, and the little black larvæ are hatched out in about a fortnight. For the first few days they cling to the egg-strings, then hang tails downwards from the under sides of leaves. They go through similar stages to those of the Frog tadpole, and become small tailless Toads, a little more than half an inch long, in eleven or twelve weeks. It is five years before they reach maturity; but the full period of life is not known. In old age they frequently succumb to the attacks of flesh-eating flies whose eggs are deposited on the back of the Toad, and the small maggots entering by eye or nostril devour the brain and eyes.

The Common Toad is found all over England, Wales, and Scotland; but Ireland appears never to have had it, in spite of the legend that St. Patrick banished it with the Snakes. It occurs all over Europe, through Siberia, the Amoor, and the Himalayas to China; also on the further side of the Mediterranean, in Morocco, and Algeria.

*Natterjack* (_Bufo calamita_, Laurent).

Although in general appearance the Natterjack may be said to resemble the Common Toad, a close inspection reveals differences that at once distinguish it as a separate species. It is smaller than the common species and its legs are not only actually but also proportionately shorter. But the narrow yellow line that runs along the centre of the head and back is the most distinctive mark, and has suggested one of its local names--Golden-back. Running Toad is the name by which it is known in the Fens, and this is a good descriptive name, for owing to the shortness of the hind limbs the Natterjack does not hop. It runs for a short distance, then stops for a little, and runs on again.

The maximum length of head and body is three inches, and there is no marked difference in size between the sexes; but the male develops nuptial pads on his first three fingers, and he has a large internal vocal sac whose use causes a great bulging of his bluish throat. The skin, though warty, is smooth; its ground colour is pale yellowish-brown tending to olive, with clouding and distant spots of a darker brown or greenish hue. The underside is yellowish-white with black spots, and the legs are barred with black. The prominent eyes are greenish-yellow, and the long porous gland (parotid) behind the eye is smaller than in the Common Toad.

The Natterjack breeds later than the common species, the pairing not beginning before the end of April and being spread over May and June. Like the Frog, it is careless regarding the permanent nature of its spawning place. The locality chosen is advertised by the rattling noise of the males, a loud trilling croak continued for a few seconds at a time, and of sufficient power to be heard a mile away. The egg-strings are short as compared with those of the Common Toad, being only five or six feet in length. The blackish tadpoles are only an inch long when fully grown; but they get through their development into tailless Toads in less than six weeks, and are then less than half an inch long. In another year they only measure three-quarters of an inch; and when they become mature between the fourth and fifth years they are only between an inch and a half and two inches long.

The Natterjack feeds on insects and worms, and though its activities are mainly nocturnal, it may be seen running about in full sunshine. When molested it spreads itself out flat on the ground and pretends to be dead. The secretion from its glands when annoyed is said to smell "of gunpowder or india-rubber."

It is plentiful in some English localities, but it appears to be somewhat migratory, many places whence it may have been recorded last year failing to yield a specimen to the careful searcher this year. Sir Joseph Banks first called attention to it as a British species in the account published in Pennant's "British Zoology" (1776). Part of his note is worth quoting: "This species frequents dry and sandy places: it is found on Putney Common, and also near Revesby Abbey, Lincolnshire, where it is called the Natter Jack. It never leaps, neither does it crawl with the slow pace of a Toad, but its motion is liker to running. Several are found commonly together, and, like others of the genus, they appear in the evenings."

In Scotland it is much more rare than in England; but in certain parts of Ireland, as around Castlemaine and Valentia Harbours in Co. Kerry, it is plentiful and known by the name of Natchet, which is probably an Irish corruption of Natterjack. In his bright and entertaining "Seventy Years of Irish Life," Mr. W. R. Le Fanu gives a native explanation of their continued presence in Kerry, in spite of St. Patrick's activities: "Notwithstanding all this, there still exists a species of Toad (the Natchet, I think) in the barony of Iveragh, in the west of Kerry. I was fishing in the Carah river the first time I saw them. I said to two countrymen, who were standing by, 'How was it that these Toads escaped Saint Patrick?' 'Well, now, yer honour,' said one of them, 'it's what I'm tould that when Saint Patrick was down in these parts he went up the Reeks, and when he seen what a wild and dissolute place Iveragh was, he wouldn't go any further; and that's the rason them things does be here still.' 'Well now, yer honour,' said the other fellow, 'I wouldn't altogether give into that, for av coorse the saint was, many's the time, in worse places than Iveragh. It's what I hear, yer honour, that it was a lady that sent them from England in a letter fifty or sixty years ago.'"

The Natterjack is found on the Continent from Denmark and Sweden to Gibraltar.

As we have naturalised representatives of the Continental Frogs here, so we have an isolated colony of the European Midwife Toad (_Alytes obstetricans_), established many years ago in what was then a nurseryman's garden at Bedford. The circumstances attending its introduction are not known, but the colony still exists. The female lays from twenty to fifty bright yellow eggs connected in a long string, which the male entangles around his thighs and retires with them to his hole until the embryos have reached the tadpole stage--a period of about six weeks. At the proper time he seeks the water, when the tadpoles escape from the eggs, and complete their development much after the manner of Common Toad tadpoles.

*Crested Newt* (_Molge cristata_, Laurent).

The Newts, of which there are three British species, though agreeing generally with the Frogs and Toads in their passage through an aquatic, tadpole stage before attaining their mature form, differ in the fact that they retain through life the compressed tail. In consequence they constitute, with the Salamanders, the order Caudata or Tailed Batrachians. As the structure, development and habits of the three are much alike their story may be told here in general terms, before proceeding to a description of the species separately.

The entire animal is enclosed in a soft skin which develops mucuous and sensory apparatus, arranged principally along the sides and the base of the tail. The two pairs of legs are almost of the same length, the hinder pair being slightly the longer. The hands have four fingers and the feet five toes as in the other batrachians. In general form they are like Lizards, and Linnæus classified them as such and was followed by the naturalists of the earlier part of the nineteenth century. During the breeding season the skin of the males develops into a high crest or fin along the middle of the back. There is a similar development above and below the tail. These developments have a triple importance: they are sexual adornments, swimming aids and sensory organs. Usually terrestrial animals, the adults are impelled to seek the water at the pairing season, and in many cases travel long distances in order to reach the stagnant pools that are mostly favoured. There are minute teeth along the jaws and on the palate; but they serve only to retain their living food.

The skin serves the same office of respiration as we mentioned in the case of the Frog, and like it they are compelled when on land to force air into their lungs by a constant pumping and swallowing action of the mouth and throat.

The male seeks to excite the female by displaying his beautiful crest and his heightened colours; also by rubbing her with his head and lashing her with his tail. Then he emits spermatophores in the form of a mushroom-shaped gelatinous mass whose head consists largely of sperms. These sink to the bottom, whence the female takes them into her body. The eggs are, in consequence, already fertilised when deposited. They are laid singly against a long leaf of one of the pond-weeds--Anacharis, Callitriche, Water-moss, etc.--which is folded over by the female and adheres to the egg. They hatch in about a fortnight, the liberated larvæ being more slender and fish-like than the tadpoles of the Frog. They have three pairs of external gills, and soon after hatching they develop two pairs of thread-like organs from the sides of the upper jaw, which enable them to cling to water plants. The process of development is more prolonged than in the Frogs and Toads, but it is mostly complete at the end of summer before the hibernation begins. The little Newts then crawl out of the water and seek shelter under stones in the immediate neighbourhood of the pond.

The Crested Newt, Warty Newt or Great Newt, is our largest species, attaining a maximum length of six inches, to which the tail contributes two inches and a half. The skin in this species is thrown into little warts, and on the upper parts is dark grey or blackish-brown. Along the lower part of the sides there is a liberal sprinkling of white dots, and the underside is coloured yellow or orange, boldly spotted or blotched with black. There is a strong collar-like fold at the base of the throat. The male's nuptial crest starts from the head as a low frill, but between the shoulders and the thighs becomes high with its edge deeply notched, the resulting "teeth" waving freely in the water. Behind the thighs there is a gap, and then the crest rises again as a tail fin, the lower edge of the tail having a similar extension. Along the sides of the tail proper runs a bluish-white, silvery-looking stripe. The eye has a golden yellow iris.

The female, who exceeds the male in size, is coloured similarly, but the lower edge of her tail is yellow or orange. Above the spine runs a depressed line, which is coloured yellow in the breeding season, which begins in April. The newly hatched, semi-transparent larvæ are yellowish-green with two black stripes along the back, which, later, when the ground colour changes to a light olive, become broken up into spots, and the flanks and underside become tinged with gold. They have a finer equipment of branchial plumes than the Frog tadpoles, and their form is more graceful and not "big headed." Some individuals do not complete their development before winter, and remain in the pond until the spring. They may be frozen in solid ice, but they thaw out none the worse for their cold storage. Their food consists of any small aquatic life such as insects, worms, crustaceans, and weaker individuals of their own kind; later, on land they feed upon worms and insects.

The adults, if they did not leave the water immediately after the conclusion of family affairs, seek dry land in the autumn, and assemble in numbers in some comfortable damp hole, where they twist and intertwine into a ball, apparently to prevent loss of moisture. In this way they pass the winter in a more or less torpid condition.

The skin is shed much after the manner of the Snake, separation beginning at the lips, and by the help of the hands and bodily wrigglings worked off the tail. These sloughs may be found floating entire in the water looking like Newt-ghosts; but on land they may be got rid of piecemeal, the old skin being sometimes swallowed as in the case of the Toad.

The Crested Newt is widely distributed over England, but is less plentiful in the west: in Devon it is a scarce species and locally restricted, and in Cornwall it does not occur. Much the same applies to Scotland, where it is found as far north as Perthshire, but not at all in the west. It is absent entirely from Ireland; but generally distributed on the Continent.

*Smooth Newt* (_Molge vulgaris_, Linn.).

The Smooth Newt, Common Newt, Spotted Newt, Eft or Evat is the best known of the trio, but is most plentiful in the eastern half of the Kingdom. It is very much smaller than the Crested Newt, its maximum length being four inches. It varies in colour, but the prevailing tint is olive-brown with darker spots over the upper side, and dark streaks on the head. The underside is orange or vermilion with round black spots, the colours becoming more intense in the breeding season; the throat white or yellow, mostly dotted with black. The underside of the female is, as a rule, much paler than that of the male, and often unspotted. At the mating period the male develops a continuous crest, running from the top of the head to the end of the tail, and the lower edge of the tail has a spotted pale blue band with black base. The upper edge of the crest is festooned instead of being serrated. The eye has a golden iris. The female has shorter fingers and toes than the male.

The breeding history of the Smooth Newt follows much on the same lines as that of the Crested Newt. The larva is spotted with yellow along the sides and tail, which ends in a thread-like prolongation of its tip.

Immediately after the breeding season the adults leave the water, and seek their food among the vegetation of the land. They become duller in colour, and the skin becomes more opaque with a fine velvety surface. They are then the Dry Evats of country folk. When aquarium-keeping was a fashionable drawing-room hobby in mid-Victorian days the Smooth Newt was an annoying pet, owing to its objection to remaining in the water after the breeding season had passed, and being so frequently found in a dry and shrivelled condition in obscure corners of the room.

In parts of Ireland it is the Man-eater or Man-keeper (as well as Dry Ask and Dark Lewker) owing to a superstitious belief that it enters the mouths of sleepers, and thereafter robs them of all nutriment of which they may partake.

*Palmate Newt* (_Molge palmata_, Dum. and Bibr.).

In general appearance the Palmate Newt is similar to the Smooth Newt, and is as smooth as that species. There is no doubt that it is commonly mistaken, for it, for a few years ago it was considered rare, but closer examination shows that whilst it is local in the south-east of England, it is more plentiful than the Smooth Newt in the west.

It is a smaller animal than the Smooth Newt, its length being three inches only. In the breeding season its distinctness is evident, for the male has then a nearly four-sided body owing to the development of a fold of skin along each side of the back. The crest, instead of being high in front and having an undulating edge, rises gradually from the head, is of less height and has an entire margin. The tail appears as though the tip had been cut off and the attempt to renew it had got only as far as the development of a short thread from the centre of the cut portion. But what gives the species its name is a black web which connects the toes. The tail develops a fin along its lower edge in both sexes, and this in the male is edged with blue and in the female with orange. Another point of distinction lies in the colour of the throat. Instead of the black-dotted white or yellow of the Smooth Newt, the throat of the Palmate Newt is flesh coloured without dots.

Above, the colour is olive-brown with darker spots; below, the centre is orange bordered by pale yellow, with or without black spots.

After the breeding season, when the adults leave the water, the webbing of the feet--being no longer useful--becomes reduced to a margin along each toe and no longer constituting a palm; but the truncated tail remains as a specific distinction, though the thread-like prolongation becomes very short in the female.

CLASSIFIED INDEX

TO ORDERS, GENERA, AND SPECIES DESCRIBED IN THIS WORK.

*Mammalia.*

_Order Insectivora._

Talpa europæa, Linn., 13

Sorex araneus, Linn., 21 " granti, 25 " minutus, Linn., 25

Neomys fodiens, Schreber, 27

Erinaceus europæus, Linn., 9

_Order Chiroptera._

Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum, Schreber, 34 " hipposideros, Bechstein, 36

Myotis bechsteinii, Kuhl, 40 " daubentonii, Kuhl, 41 " mystacinus, Kuhl, 37 " nattereri, Kuhl, 39

Vespertilio murinus, Linn., 45 " pipistrellus, Schreber, 43 " serotinus, Schreber, 44

Nyctalus leisleri, Kuhl, 48 " noctula, Schreber, 46

Plecotus auritus, Linn., 49

Barbastella barbastellus, Schreber, 51

_Order Carnivora._

Vulpes canis, Linn., 52

Meles taxus, Boddaert, 55

Lutra vulgaris, Erxleben, 59

Mustela erminea, Linn., 66 " hibernicus, Thomas, 69 " martes, Linn., 63 " nivalis, Linn., 69 " putorius, Linn., 73

Felis silvestris, Schreber, 75

_Order Rodentia._

Oryctolagus cuniculus, Linn., 113

Lepus europæus, Pallas, 117 " hibernicus, Bell, 123 " timidus, Linn., 121

Muscardinus avellanarius, Linn., 82

Evotomys alstoni, Barrett-Hamilton, 112 " erica, Barrett-Hamilton, 113 " glareolus, Schreber, 110 " skomeriensis, Barrett-Hamilton, 112

Microtus agrestis, Linn., 105 " orcadensis, Millais, 109

Arvicola amphibius, Linn., 102

Apodemus flavicollis, Melchior, 91 " fridariensis, Kinnear, 92 " hebridensis, de Winton, 92 " sylvaticus, Linn., 89

Micromys minutus, Pallas, 86

Epimys norvegicus, Erxleben, 97 " rattus, Linn., 95

Mus muralis, Barrett-Hamilton, 94 " musculus, Linn., 92

Sciurus vulgaris, Linn., 78 [ " cinereus, Linn., 81]

[Tamias striatus, Linn., 82]

_Order Ungulata._

Cervus dama, Linn., 130 " elaphus, Linn., 124

Capreolus capraea, Gray, 133

*Reptilia.*

_Order Lacertilia._

Lacerta agilis, Linn., 140 " vivipara, Wagl., 136 [ " muralis, Merr., 142] [ " viridis, Linn., 142]

Anguis fragilis, Linn., 142

_Order Ophidia._

Tropidonotus natrix, Linn., 146

Coronella austriaca, Lacepede, 152

Vipera berus, Linn., 154

*Batrachia.*

_Order Ecaudata._

Rana temporaria, Linn., 157 [ " esculenta, Linn., 162]

[Hyla arborea, Linn., 165]

Bufo calamita, Laurent, 170 " vulgaris, Laurent, 165

[Alytes obstetricans, Laurent, 172]

_Order Caudata._

Molge cristata, Linn., 173 " palmata, Dum. and Bibr., 177 " vulgaris, Linn., 176

INDEX

Adder, 154, Plates 92A, 92B, 94, 96

Alexandrine Rat, 97, Pl. 61

Alpine Hare, 121, Pl. 79

_Alytes obstetricans_, 172

_Anguis fragilis_, 142

_Apodemus butei_, 92; _A. flavicollis_, 91; _A. fridariensis_, 92; _A. hebridensis_, 92; _A. hirtensis_, 92; _A. sylvaticus_, 89

"Art of Learning," 2

_Arvicola amphibia_, 102

Ask, 177

Badger, 55, Pl. 37

Bank Vole, 110, Pl. 71

_Barbastella barbastellus_, 51

Barbastelle, 51, Pl. 33A, 33B

Barn Rat, 100

Bat, Barbastelle, 51; " Bechstein's B., 40; " Common B., 43; " Daubenton's B., 41; " Great B., 46; " Horse-shoe B., 34; " Leisler's B., 48; " Long-eared B., 49; " Natterer's B., 39; " Noctule B., 46; " Parti-coloured B., 45; " Red-grey B., 39; " Whiskered B., 37

Bechstein's Bat, 40

Blind-worm, 142

Bony structure of Vertebrates, 4

British Rat, 95, Pl. 62

Brown Hare, 117, Pls. 75, 77; B. Rat, 97, Pls. 63, 64

_Bufo calamita_, 170; _B. vulgaris_, 165

Bush Rabbit, 116

Bute Field Mouse, 92

_Capreolus caprea_, 133

Carnivora, 52

Cat, Wild, 72, Pl. 46