The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1905-04-07
THE GREEDY TOAD.
Ants, Cutworms and Honeybees Are
a Favorite Diet.

Ants, CutwOrms and HOneybeeD Are
Favorite Diet.
The toad is gross feeder. He sallies
forth usually after shutdown in search
of his prey, which includes pretty near
every variety of insect and worm, and
experiment proves that in twenty-four
hours he will consume insect food Of
volume fourfold the capacity Of his
stomach-in other words, he can fill up
four times. OF angleworms he does not
seem very fond, though his gluttonous
habit extends to them If they are too
temptingly abundant, as after the
earth has had good wetting.
Ants appear to be his chief delight,
with cutworms and thousand leggers
next in order. Then come caterpillars
and beetles. Grasshoppers and crickets
furnish 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 makes for it eagerly. A cut
worm which has discretion enough
when in his neighborhood to keep curl
ed up may easily escape, but as soon
as it begins to travel let it beware.
His method of capturing bug is to
dart out his tongue. which, by the way,
reverses the usual order of nature, it
being fastened in front and loose be-
hind. 1t is coated with a gelatinOus Sc
erection, and when it strikes an objt it
fastens firmly to it and conveys it ato
the toad's mouth. If the object, like.
big worm, for instance, is too large to
go unassisted into his outlet, he uses
his forepaws, like 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. 1t 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 their Judgment have acquired
certain affection for the ant. It's seem
ing intelligence, its artistic or mechan-
ical instinct, its untiring industry, its
courage, It's care for its dead and
wounded, its nice domestic economy
and its habit of providing against the
''rainy day" all tend to give it sort of
human claim upon mankind.
Still the fact cannot be ignored that
the ant is an active distributor Of plant
lice; that it destroys lawns, spoils gar
den walks, infests dwellings and makes
itself common nuisance in the kitch-
en- and pantry, driving the housewife
almost to distraction. In the same cat
egory with ants as to human regard
might be placed the honeybee, 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 raising his hives 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 expert
ment. His official record shows one
case where he ate ninety rose bugs
without being satisfied; another where
he snapped up eight house flies in less
than ten minutes. In one toad's stom-
ach We're found seventy seven thou
sand-legged worms, in another sixty
five gypsy moth caterpillars, in anoth-
er fifty-fve army worms, and so on.
On the basis Of his being able to I'LL
his stomach four times in twenty-four
hours, it requires a simple mathemat-
ical calculation to discover how many
of each variety Of winged or crawling
pest single toad might get away
with in day if he kept at it and the
conditions were favorable. and, multi
plying this product by ninety, as repre-
senting the days in a summer-for Mr..
Toad is no respecter of Sundays or hol-
idays-we can measure his potential ca
pacity for good as the gardeners
friend.