I find that gardening has unsurpassed advantages for the study of
natural history; and some scientific facts have come under my own
observation, which cannot fail to interest naturalists and
un-naturalists in about the same degree. Much, for instance, has
been written about the toad, an animal without which no garden would
be complete. But little account has been made of his value: the
beauty of his eye alone has been dwelt on; and little has been said
of his mouth, and its important function as a fly and bug trap. His
habits, and even his origin, have been misunderstood. Why, as an
illustration, are toads so plenty after a thunder-shower? All my
life long, no one has been able to answer me that question. Why,
after a heavy shower, and in the midst of it, do such multitudes of
toads, especially little ones, hop about on the gravel-walks? For
many years, I believed that they rained down; and I suppose many
people think so still. They are so small, and they come in such
numbers only in the shower, that the supposition is not a violent
one. "Thick as toads after a shower," is one of our best proverbs.
I asked an explanation 'of this of a thoughtful woman,--indeed, a
leader in the great movement to have all the toads hop in any
direction, without any distinction of sex or religion. Her reply
was, that the toads come out during the shower to get water. This,
however, is not the fact. I have discovered that they come out not
to get water. I deluged a dry flower-bed, the other night, with
pailful after pailful of water. Instantly the toads came out of
their holes in the dirt, by tens and twenties and fifties, to escape
death by drowning. The big ones fled away in a ridiculous streak of
hopping; and the little ones sprang about in the wildest confusion.
The toad is just like any other land animal: when his house is full
of water, he quits it. These facts, with the drawings of the water