All the Tree-toads, or Hylidæ, have clear, shrill voices, and are fond of singing serenades. In the spring the Common Toad takes to the water and there sings very loudly. The loud continuous trill that we hear in swamps in spring-time is made by toads, and not by frogs, as is generally believed. Another toad with a voice is the Spade-foot. This Toad is rare, though widely distributed. It is remarkable for its feet, formed for digging, its subterranean habits, and its queer way of appearing and disappearing very suddenly. After a rainy season the Spade-foot will emerge from its hiding-place, attract attention by its loud cries, swarm by hundreds about the ponds, lay innumerable eggs, and vanish. But while thousands of eggs are laid, scarcely any hatch, for most of them perish from being laid so near to the water’s edge as to become dried up on the subsidence of the water. Thus we find that toads have three different methods of life. Some live on trees, but seldom appear upon the ground. Others are underground dwellers, and hardly ever come to the surface. But the Common Toad, and his numerous kin, are dwellers in the ground, hiding among grass and other herbage when asleep, or when the sun is too intense for their comfort. But all toads, excepting the two varieties mentioned above, which carry their young on their bodies, repair to the water to drop their eggs, and the young live in the water until they have attained the adult state. OUR NATURAL ENEMIES. No animal, perhaps, is so little known and understood as the snake. This is not because its study has been neglected or overlooked, as our scientific institutions are replete with fine collections of most of the reptiles, and exhaustive works upon their habits and customs. Yet, notwithstanding this, the snake continues to be the subject of ever-recurring stories, fabulous in the extreme, that seem handed down from generation to generation. Strange to say, many of these stories are current among those who, from the nature of their lives, would be expected to be well and accurately informed on the habits of the animals. Farmers and horticulturists are plentiful who religiously believe that the Milk Snake, the beautiful _Ophibolus clericus_, deprives milk-giving animals of their supply of milk. A statement often seen, and that has many believers, is that the Whip-snake of the South seizes its tail--which is supposed to have a sting--in its mouth, and rolls away in the form of a wheel, stopping suddenly and striking the enemy with the sting. Such fables are current by the score, and denial only strengthens belief.