Fourth, by cooperating with the authorities in seeing that the laws protecting the birds are enforced.
The Audubon Society has done much effective work along these lines, and a Girl Scout should join this society, whose headquarters are 1974 Broadway, New York City.
Amphibians
All nature is so full that that district produces the greatest variety which is most examined.
—Gilbert White, Natural History of Selborne.
The group of back-boned animals next above the fishes is the Amphibians, which includes the frogs, toads, salamanders,[7] and their relatives. The name "amphibian" refers to two modes of life as shown by most of the frogs and toads. A good example is the Common Toad, whose eggs are laid in the water. These eggs hatch out not into toads, but into tadpoles, which have no legs and which breathe by means of gills, as the fishes do. They grow rapidly, develop a pair of hind legs and then a pair of front legs, while the tail and gills are absorbed, all within a little more than a month from the time the eggs are laid. During this change a pair of lungs is developed, so that the toads breathe air as human beings do. The eggs of toads and frogs may be collected in the spring in ponds, and this remarkable change from the egg through the tadpole stage to the adult form may be observed in a simple home aquarium. Toads' eggs may be distinguished from those of frogs by the fact that toads' eggs are laid in strings, while frogs' eggs are laid in masses.
TOAD
A valuable animal in the garden because of the insects which it eats. Range: Eastern United States. Photograph by Herbert Lang.
Every Girl Scout should know the song of the toad. William Hamilton Gibson says it is "the sweetest sound in nature." (Sharp Eyes, p. 54.) If you do not know it, take a lantern or electric flash-lamp after dark some evening in the spring at egg-laying time, and go to the edge of some pond and see the toad sing. Notice how the throat is puffed out while the note is being produced.
