Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1873-10-02
Toad, Worm, Bee and Fly Stories.

LIZ 4AOAdS LII, ID SC1cutlSt, dI TIC
recent convention of the Society for the
Advancement of Science, at Portland,
made the following statement:
In the summers of 1885 an old toad
used to sit under the door of beehive
every fine evening and dextrously pick
up those bees who were laden, or tired,
or missed the doorstep and dropped to
the ground.
When our toad gets into his mouth
part of an insect too large for his
tongue to thrust down his throat land
/ have known of their attempting a
wounded humming bird), he resorts to
the nearest stone or clod and presses
the protruding part of his mouthful
against it and thus crowds it down its
throat. This can be observed at any
time by tying locust's hind legs to-
gether and throwing it before toad.
On one occasion l gave a yellow
striped" locust to a little toad in it's
second summer, when he was in the
middle of very wide gravel walk. In
a moment he had the locust'S head
down his throat, its hinder parts pro-
truding, and looking around for stone
or clod, but finding none at hand in
either direction, he bowed his head and
crept along, pushing the locust against
the ground. But the angle with the
ground was too small and my walk too
well rolled. To increase the angle he
Strengthened his hind legs up, but in
vain. At length he threw up his hind
quarters, and actually stood on his
head, Or rather on the locust sticking
out of his mouth, and after repeating
this once or twice, succeeded IN "ger-
ting himself outside of his dinner"
was tossing four-year-old toad Cat
Antioch College) earthworms, while
digging, ADD presently threw him so
large a specimen that he was obliged
to attack one end only That end was
instantly transferred to his stomach,
the other end writhing free in air and
coiled about the toad's head. He
waited until his writings gave him
chance, swallowed half an inch, then
taking nip with his jaws, waited fo1
a chance to draw In another half inch.
But there were so many half inches to
dispose of that at length his jaws grew
tired, lost their firmness of grip, and
the worm crawled out five-eighths of
an inch between each half-inch swal-
lowing. The toad, perceiving this,
brought his right hand to aid his jaws,
grasping bis abdomen with his foot,
and by little effort, getting hold of
the worm in his stomach from the out
side, he thus by his foot held fast to
what he gained by each swallow, and
presently succeeded in getting the worm
entirely down
A garter-snake was observed this
summer in North Conway, pushing
toad down his throat by running it
against the clods and stones, just as
the toad crowds down locust.
The amount which toad can eat is
surprising. On Tuesday / threw a
squash-bug to a young toad. He
snapped it up, but Immediately rejected
it, wiped his mouth with great energy,
and then hoped away with extraOr-
binary rapidity. I was so much amused
that gathered some more of the SOW
bugs and carried them to a favorite old
toad at the northeast corner OF the
house. He eat them all without any
WY faces. I gathered all that could
find on my vines, and he eat them all
to the number of twenty-three. 1 then
brought him some Larvae of pygaera
menistra, three-quarters grown, and
succeeded in enticing him to put ninety
four on the top of his squash-bugs.
Finding that his virtue was not proof
against the carterpillars when l put
them on the end of straw and tickled
his nose with them, he at length turned
and crept under the piazza, where he
remained until Friday, digesting his
feast.
This, Ike the paper on snakes,
brought several members to their feet,
but the climax was finally capped by
man who had seen toad swallow with
relish 713 house flies.