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.

The little toads started out, perhaps a hundred at a time, from the
small pool in which their eggs were laid. These creatures find dragons
on every side. The gartersnake comes along and gets his first toll;
the heron follows him and takes such as catch his hungry eye; the
turkey gobbles up his from what are left. By the time the toad-eating
creatures in the neighborhood have taken such as they found, there are
very few remaining. These doubtless have been left for a very good
reason, generally because they were not noticed. This was because they
looked like the ground on which they sat, and because they kept
perfectly quiet while the enemy moved about. This process has gone on
so long that the toad has come to be astonishingly well protected by
its resemblance to the ground. This likeness it intensifies by its
interesting habit not only of keeping entirely quiet, but of dropping
its nose to the ground, instead of sitting high on its front legs, as
it does when not in danger.

I have noticed that if a snake and a toad be placed in the same cage,
when the snake approaches to capture the toad the toad drops into a
squatting position, and is very likely to blow himself up until he is
rounder in outl