The Natterjack breeds later than the common species, the pairing not beginning before the end of April and being spread over May and June. Like the Frog, it is careless regarding the permanent nature of its spawning place. The locality chosen is advertised by the rattling noise of the males, a loud trilling croak continued for a few seconds at a time, and of sufficient power to be heard a mile away. The egg-strings are short as compared with those of the Common Toad, being only five or six feet in length. The blackish tadpoles are only an inch long when fully grown; but they get through their development into tailless Toads in less than six weeks, and are then less than half an inch long. In another year they only measure three-quarters of an inch; and when they become mature between the fourth and fifth years they are only between an inch and a half and two inches long.

The Natterjack feeds on insects and worms, and though its activities are mainly nocturnal, it may be seen running about in full sunshine. When molested it spreads itself out flat on the ground and pretends to be dead. The secretion from its glands when annoyed is said to smell "of gunpowder or india-rubber."

It is plentiful in some English localities, but it appears to be somewhat migratory, many places whence it may have been recorded last year failing to yield a specimen to the careful searcher this year. Sir Joseph Banks first called attention to it as a British species in the account published in Pennant's "British Zoology" (1776). Part of his note is worth quoting: "This species frequents dry and sandy places: it is found on Putney Common, and also near Revesby Abbey, Lincolnshire, where it is called the Natter Jack. It never leaps, neither does it crawl with the slow pace of a Toad, but its motion is liker to running. Several are found commonly together, and, like others of the genus, they appear in the evenings."

In Scotland it is much more rare than in England; but in certain parts of Ireland, as around Castlemaine and Valentia Harbours in Co. Kerry, it is plentiful and known by the name of Natchet, which is probably an Irish corruption of Natterjack. In his bright and entertaining "Seventy Years of Irish Life," Mr. W. R. Le Fanu gives a native explanation of their continued presence in Kerry, in spite of St. Patrick's activities: "Notwithstanding all this, there still exists a species of Toad (the Natchet, I think) in the barony of Iveragh, in the west of Kerry. I was fishing in the Carah river the first time I saw them. I said to two countrymen, who were standing by, 'How was it that these Toads escaped Saint Patrick?' 'Well, now, yer honour,' said one of them, 'it's what I'm tould that when Saint Patrick was down in these parts he went up the Reeks, and when he seen what a wild and dissolute place Iveragh was, he wouldn't go any further; and that's the rason them things does be here still.' 'Well now, yer honour,' said the other fellow, 'I wouldn't altogether give into that, for av coorse the saint was, many's the time, in worse places than Iveragh. It's what I hear, yer honour, that it was a lady that sent them from England in a letter fifty or sixty years ago.'"

The Natterjack is found on the Continent from Denmark and Sweden to Gibraltar.

As we have naturalised representatives of the Continental Frogs here, so we have an isolated colony of the European Midwife Toad (Alytes obstetricans), established many years ago in what was then a nurseryman's garden at Bedford. The circumstances attending its introduction are not known, but the colony still exists. The female lays from twenty to fifty bright yellow eggs connected in a long string, which the male entangles around his thighs and retires with them to his hole until the embryos have reached the tadpole stage—a period of about six weeks. At the proper time he seeks the water, when the tadpoles escape from the eggs, and complete their development much after the manner of Common Toad tadpoles.

[Pl. 108A]][M 172.
Male in bridal attire.
Smooth Newt.
Molge vulgaris.

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