The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-07-13
EATING POWER OF ToAps.
Can Fill Up Four Times and Still Be
 Hungry.

From a recent government bulletin.
 The toad is a gross feeder. He sallies forth usually after sundown in search of his prey, which includes pretty nearly every variety of insect and worm, and experiment proves that in twenty-four hours he will consume insect food of a volume fourfold the capaity of his stom- ach-in other words, he can fill up four times. Of angle worms he does not seem very fond though his gluttonous habit extends to them if they are too tempt ingly abundant, as after the earth has had a good wetting. Ants appear to be his chief delight, with cutworms and thousand-leggers next in order. Then comes caterpillars and beetles. Grass hoppers and crickets funish but small part of his bill of fare, and spiders still less. He has no use, apparently, for dead prey; but when an insect or worm comes near him in motion he wakes for 1t eager ly. cutworm which has discretion enough, when in his neighborhood, to keep curled up, may easily escape; but as soon as 1t begins to crawl let it beware. His method of capturing bug is to dart out his tongue, which, by the way, reverses the usual order of nature in being fast ened in front and loose behind. It Is coated with a glutinous secretion, and when it strikes an object 1t fastens firm ly to it and conveys 1t into the toad's mouth. If the object like big worm for instance, is too large to go unassisted into his gullet he uses his forepaws, like a greedy child, to stuff it down.
 Most of the viands which the toad loves are, in their living state, pests of the farm and garden. It is hard to say just where to place ants in this classif- cation. Nearly all students of nature, as well as persons who have nothing but the traditions of their childhood to guide utelIso psIInboB eABu 3u9uISpnr II9ql affection for the ant. Its seeming intel ligence, its artistic or mechanical instinct, it's untiring industry, it's courage, its care for it's dead and wounded, it's nice do- mestic economy, and it's habit of provid- ing against the rainy day." all tend to give it sort of human claim upon us Still, the fact cannot be ignored that the ant Is an active distributor of plant lice. that it destroys lawns, spells garden walks, infests dwellings, and makes itself a common nuisance in the kitchen and pantry. driving the dainty house wife al- most to distraction. In the same category with ants, as to human regard, might be placed honeybees, which the toad will eat when he gets good chance One of his tricks is to station himself at the entrance to hive and capture the belated home corners. As the toad does not spring into the air for his food, however, any apiarist may avoid this danger by rais- ing his hive well above the ground.
 Reference has been made to the toad's consumption of food as being out of proportion to his bulk But what he can actually do at a sitting is best told by figures derived from experiment. His off, ficial record shows one case where he ate 90 rosebugs without being satisfied; anoth- CT where he snapped up s6 houseflies in less than 10 minutes In one toad's stom- ach were found 77 thousand-legged worms; in another 6o gypsy moth caterpillars; in another 55 army worms; and so on. On the basis of his being able to fill his stomach four times in twenty-rour hours, 1t requires a simple mathematical call cuation to discover how many of each variety of winged or crawling pests a single toad might get away with in a day if he kept at it and the conditions were favorable; and multiplying this product by 90, as representing the days in sum mer-fdr MT. Toad is no respector of Sundays or holdays-we can measure his potential capacity for good as the gard ener's friend.