The Green Toad spends most of the day in holes, although it is not averse to daylight, and it roams about chiefly in the evening. It can jump well, much better and oftener than the Brown Toad. The food consists strictly of insects of all kinds, and most individuals prefer slow starvation to eating an earthworm. Although continuing to live four or five years in captivity, they do not readily become tame; they are indeed no longer wild, and when handled they no longer emit their peculiar insipid smell, but on being approached they still crouch deeply into the grass, or withdraw into their holes, just as they did when recently caught. The voice is heard during the pairing season, and sounds like the slow creaking of a door, or a combination of a spinning top and {181}rattle. In Germany, during the months of April and May, they take to the ponds, or, improvident like the common frog, to a roadside ditch. The male sits upon the female and grasps her below the arms, his hands on her breast, and in this position they remain for days. The eggs are laid in two strings, twisted around water-plants, and are very numerous. Héron-Royer has calculated them at 10,000 or more in one set. The embryos are hatched, like those of the Common Toad, before the appearance of the external gills and of the tail. In this imperfect condition they remain in the jelly of the egg-strings for a few days, while their external gills sprout out like unbranched little stumps, only to disappear again. In about eight weeks the tadpoles, which reach a length little more than 1½ inch or 40 mm., have metamorphosed and leave the water as baby-toads scarcely half an inch in length. This species has a very wide range, namely, the whole of Middle Europe excepting the British Isles, France and the Iberian Peninsula; the region between the Elbe and Rhine being its western limit; southwards it extends over all the Mediterranean islands and the north coast of Africa, eastwards through the whole of Russia, Western and Central Asia, not entering India, but spreading along the Himalayas into China. Stoliczka mentions its having been found in the Himalayas at an altitude of 15,000 feet, the highest record of any Amphibian, at least in such latitudes. _B. calamita._–The Natterjack is practically the representative of the Green Toad in Western Europe, but both species occur together in Denmark, Southern Sweden, and nearly the whole of Germany. Its southern limit is Gibraltar. In the British Isles it occurs in South-Western Ireland, in Co. Kerry, and in England and Wales, being however local, and preferring sandy localities, where it is found in considerable numbers. This predilection is shown by its frequency on the sandy dunes of most of the islands off the German and Dutch coast, where it may be seen running about in glaring sunshine.