Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/349

Rh Notes on a species of Toad. The annexed is copied from a diary kept in Dorsetshire, near Poole, on the coast, and communicated to me as follows. "My attention some years back (1820) was attracted in the month of March, and again in autumn, to the migration of a numerous army of a species of toad (which T believe to be distinct and not yet described) from their hibernal quarters to their breeding localities. Their course lay across a heath and moor, and could be traced by the fragments of their bodies left by the rats and birds of prey, which molested them on their route. The distance was two miles, and there was no pond nearer, except such as were subject to be dried up. They travelled in a direct line. These annual migrations continued until 1835, when, having purchased a portion of the heath and bog, I cut a canal through the latter from the sea across their line of march. In crossing this canal in the spring I found large quantities of toads dead in it, probably from the effects of the salt water, for I afterwards found by experiment that they lived but a very short time in seawater: many more died on their return, and they never attempted the journey after I accidentally discovered their winter quarters, which were in an old sand-pit. On looking into this pit one day in the early part of November, I was surprised to see a number of toads, and a vast quantity of loose sand in motion. On turning it over with a spade, I found numbers of toads working themselves further into it. The sand in its natural bed is replete with thin laminae of hardened sand. I observed several of the larger toads climbing the perpendicular side of the sand-pit by clinging to these laminas by their claws, some to the height of three feet from the bottom. When they found two laminae sufficiently wide apart to suit their purpose, which they appear to determine by feeling with their fore legs, they proceeded to rake out the soft sand with one hand, while they held on by the other, relieving themselves by changing hands: in this way they soon effected a lodgement, and then rapidly worked in out of sight, turning the sand they excavated behind them, and thus burying themselves to the depth of eighteen inches from the face. In the spring they came out, leaving their holes open, which were taken possession of by the martins (Hirundo riparia). Next year the sand-pit was filled up, and I do not know where their winter quarters now are. Being obliged to abandon their summer quarters in consequence of the obstruction by the canal, they located themselves in two pools, both subject to dry up, within two hundred yards of their winter quarters, and near to my house, which they still frequent, though they have changed their winter haunts, and I have had an opportunity of repeatedly observing them. I always kept a sharp look out for my old friends, the toads, and was much pleased, on Sunday morning, the 26th of January, 1840, as I returned from church past one of the pools, at 1 o'clock, P.M., the sun shining most beautifully, to see the whole surface studded with their brilliant gold-encircled eyes: they were not in sight when I passed three hours before. I looked attentively at them for five minutes, when, making a little noise with my stick, they all disappeared as if by magic. Not a particle of spawn was to be seen. From this time I visited them daily; on the following day, the 27th, a quantity of spawn was floating on the water, and not many toads were to be seen: by the 30th not a toad was visible in the pond. On the 18th of February, the first young tadpoles made their appearance, it was a very cold easterly wind: on the 19th, weather the same, many more tadpoles were to be seen. The weather, which, previously to the 17th, had been warm, with wind at south west, now became exceedingly cold, and the wind north east. On the 20th, the tadpoles became torpid; ice was the eighth of an inch thick over the spawn that had not vivified, but on no other part of the pool, nor over the tadpoles. 21st, pool frozen