The Writings of John Burroughs — Volume 05: PepactonBurroughs, John
History
The Writings of John Burroughs — Volume 05: Pepacton
Burroughs, John
Natural history -- Outdoor books
The finding of the two sexes together, under such circumstances and
at that time of the year, suggests the inquiry whether they do not
breed away from the water, as others of our toads are known at
times to do, and thus skip the tadpole state. I have several times
seen the ground, after a June shower, swarming with minute toads,
out to wet their jackets. Some of them were no larger than
crickets. They were a long distance from the water, and had
evidently been hatched on the land, and had never been polliwogs.
Whether the tree-toad breeds in trees or on the land, yet remains
to be determined. [FOOTNOTE: It now (1895) seems well established
that both common toads and tree-toads pass the first period of
their lives in water as tadpoles, and that both undergo their
metamorphosis when very small. As soon as the change is effected,
the little toads leave the water and scatter themselves over the
country with remarkable rapidity, traveling chiefly by night, but
showing themselves in the daytime after showers.]
Another fact in the natural history of this creature, not set down
in the books, is that they pass the winter in a torpid state in the
ground, or in stumps and hollow trees, instead of in the mud of
ponds and marshes, like true frogs, as we have been taught. The
pair in the old apple-tree above referred to, I heard on a warm,
moist day late in November, and again early in April. On the
latter occasion, I reached my hand down into the cavity of the tree
and took out one of the toads. It was the first I had heard, and I
am convinced it had passed the winter in the moist, mud-like mass
of rotten wood that partially filled the cavity. It had a fresh,
delicate tint, as if it had not before seen the light that spring.
The president of a Western college writes in "Science News" that
two of his students found one in the winter in an old stump which
they demolished; and a person whose veracity I have no reason to
doubt sends me a specimen that he dug out of the ground in December
while hunting for Indian relics. The place was on the top of a
hill, under a pine-tree. The ground was frozen on the surface, and
the toad was, of course, torpid.
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