and
decaying wood. Live-traps for small mammals, having nest boxes attached,
almost always were occupied by colonies of _Crematogaster_, if they were
left in the field in warm, humid weather. Occasionally the ants attacked
and killed small mammals caught in such traps. Among the thousands of
kinds of insects occurring on the Reservation, this ant is one of the
most numerous in individuals, one of the most important on the basis of
biomass and provides an abundant food source for those predators that
are ant eaters. Food supply probably is not a limiting factor to
populations of _Gastrophryne_ on the area.

PREDATION

Young copperheads are known to feed upon ant-eating frogs occasionally
(Anderson, 1942: 216; Freiburg, 1951: 378). Other kinds of snakes
supposedly eat them also. The common water snake (_Natrix sipedon_) and
garter snake (_Thamnophis sirtalis_) probably take heavy toll of the
adults at the time they are concentrated at the breeding pools. Larger
salientians may be among the more important enemies of the breeding
adults, the tadpoles, and the newly metamorphosed young. Bullfrogs
(_Rana catesbeiana_) and leopard frogs (_Rana pipiens_) are normally
abundant at the pond on the Reservation. These large voracious frogs
lining the banks are quick to lunge at any moving object, and must take
heavy toll of the much smaller ant-eating frogs that have to pass
through their ranks to reach the water. The newly metamorphosed young
often are forced to remain at a pond's edge for many days, or even for
weeks, by drought and they must be subject to especially heavy predation
by ranid frogs. Even the smallest newly metamorphosed bullfrogs and
leopard frogs would be large enough to catch and eat them.

As a result of persistent drought conditions in 1952 and 1953, bullfrogs
were completely eliminated from the pond by early 1954. Re-invasion by a
few individuals occurred in the course of the summer; these probably
made long overland trips from ponds or streams that had persisted
through the drought. Leopard frogs reached the pond in somewhat larger
numbers, but their population in 1954 was only a small percentage of
that present in most other years. Notable success in the ant-eating
frog's reproduction in 1954 may have been due largely to the scarcity of
these large ranids at the breeding ponds.

Freiburg (_loc. cit._) noted that many of the ant-eating frogs he
examined were scarred, and some had digits or limbs amputat