Many of my little brothers and sisters, alas! were eaten by snakes, and—yes, Feather Flop—gobbled up by crows. No, Feather Flop, dogs wouldn’t bite us, because—do you see the warts on my back? They are very useful to me. When I want to disgust an enemy, I can send out of those warts a disagreeable, biting secretion, and I am dropped pretty quickly. No, of course, we cannot make warts on people’s hands. No toad ever did anything of the kind! It’s a horrible untruth. Certainly we seem cold to people’s touch. That’s because our blood is of the same temperature as the air. Their blood is warmer. Well, as I said, almost any enemy drops one of us grown-up toads quickly but snakes! They don’t seem to mind us at all. Ugh! when I see one I either hop away with all my might, or I bury myself in the earth. No, Feather Flop, I can’t teach you how! I do it with my hind legs. See how I can kick! There are two more ways in which we escape our enemies. In the first place, if you notice carefully, you will observe that I am almost the color of the leaves on which I am sitting. If I should hop out there on the path, my coat would change in a short time to nearly the color of the path. Oh, I do not care to try it now. The sun is shining there, and I certainly do not like sunlight and heat! The fact of our color being nearly the shade of our surroundings prevents enemies from seeing us. Yes, you are right, we shed our skins several times a year, and we swallow them. We generally do this when no one is looking. The other way we escape notice is the fact that we feed mostly at night, while our enemies are asleep. HOW TOADS HELP THE GARDEN Speaking of food, Feather Flop—have you eaten any of those delicious tent caterpillars? No? Well, you should try some. Don’t you like them? They stick to your throat? Oh, I didn’t know that, but I’ve noticed that you didn’t seem to eat them, nor “thousand-leggers.” That’s the reason I said I was of more benefit than you to the garden. Just listen until I tell you what I had this early morning for supper. No, not breakfast! I told you I feed at night. Early morning brings my supper time! Well, these are what I had: [F ]6 cutworms 5 thousand leg worms 6 sow bugs 9 ants 1 weevil 1 ground beetle