The same sort of activity has resulted in the peculiar green color of the katydid. This creature lives chiefly upon the leaves of trees and shrubs. This insect is so large that, even though it is leaflike in color, it might still be conspicuous. As a result those katydids whose wings were most like leaves in form were least likely to be picked up by the passing bird. This sort of protective appearance is intensified by exactly the same means as that which brought about protective coloration. The katydid least leaflike in appearance was eaten first. Thus those most leaflike remain until the last, and are most likely to produce young. Again, it was not the fact that they lived among leaves which made them look leaflike, but it is because they look like leaves that they escaped being devoured. The katydid has materially assisted in its own preservation by being active chiefly at night. In the daytime it keeps comparatively quiet. Thus seated upon a twig, especially if hidden among the leaves, it is almost unnoticeable. At night, however, it moves about more freely, seeking its food and eventually its mate. At such times it becomes distinctly more conspicuous because its wings are steadily fluttering. The hind wings are filmy and are very light green. The creature looks most ghost-like as it flies through the evening air. A very similar history lies back of the coloring of the ordinary toad. Though descended from the frog, and originally a creature of the water, the toad has long since adapted itself to live upon the dry ground. It still produces its young in the water as it did when a frog. Whereas the childhood of the frog, that is, its tadpole stage, is very long and it assumes its adult form comparatively late, just the reverse is the case of the toad. The young hasten through their tadpole stage within a few weeks, and assume the shape of the parent toad when about big enough to cover your little fingernail. Now they leave the water and seek dry land. Naturally they make the change when the land is damp, that is, after a warm spring rain. People seeing these multitudes of little toads hopping around over a bare spot of ground, and remembering the rain of the night before, insist that it has rained toads. Of course it never rains down anything which cannot evaporate up. The stories of showers of toads and of earth worms, with an occasional fish, or even creatures of larger size, are all pure myths. There are conceivable tornadoes after which there might be a shower of such creatures, but at such a time it is likely also to rain barn roofs and buggies. You may be sure that toads which come down in the rain are dead after they strike the ground.