We said that toads were generally silent; a little toad about three inches long, called a “natter-jack,” is common in England and is a noted singer, for a toad. His “gluck-gluck, gluck-k-k,” can be heard any night. The “green toad,” well known on the continent, is not so noisy as the natter-jack, but has a low, moaning cry. All the true tree-toads, or Hylidæ, have clear, shrill voices,[67] and are fond of singing serenades. Like tree-frogs, tree-toads have the ends of the toes dilated into flat plates, or disks, which render their footing more secure as they hop among the branches. Our American Hylidæ are small, green-colored with brown markings, but in Asia they are often brightly colored. One very pretty little Hyla lives near ponds, and seated on the hard leaves of water-plants sings its shrill monotonous song. All summer, from early April, the Hylidæ trill and sing, but as the autumn frosts come, their songs begin earlier and last longer. As the red and yellow leaves fall in showers from the trees, and the golden-rod and asters begin to faint and die among the sere grasses, the Hylidæ seem to be singing their requiem, and bewailing the coming of winter. Another toad with a voice is the spade-foot. This toad is rare though widely distributed; it is remarkable for its feet, shaped for digging, its subterranean habits, and its curious way of appearing and disappearing very suddenly. After a rainy season the spade-foot will come out from some hiding-place, attract attention by loud cries, swarm by hundreds about ponds, lay innumerable eggs,--and vanish. But while thousands of eggs are laid, scores only hatch, for most of them perish from being laid so near the water’s edge that the subsidence of the water leaves them to dry up. While scores hatch, only tens grow up; for the spade-foot tadpoles devour one another, and are so greedy that very few survive. These few are most ravenous in their appetites. A spade-foot tadpole will seize a grasshopper, and being too small to swallow over half his prey, will calmly lie waiting for the swallowed half to digest in order that he may gulp down the remainder. As soon as a spade-foot tadpole becomes a “hopper,” getting four legs and losing its tail, it leaves the pond and indulges its digging instincts. It scrapes out a house for itself, from eight inches to two feet in length, and cheerfully takes up an underground residence. Thus we find that toads have three different methods of life, some being arboreal, or tree dwellers, seldom appearing on the ground; some subterranean, or underground dwellers seldom appearing on the surface; some dwellers on the ground, hiding among grass and other herbage when asleep, or when the sun is too hot for their comfort. But all toads, except the two varieties mentioned above, which carry their young on their bodies, go to the water to drop their eggs, and the young live in the water until they reach the adult state. FOOTNOTES: