The Writings of John Burroughs — Volume 05: Pepacton

by John Burroughs

THE TREE-TOAD

We can boast a greater assortment of toads and frogs in this country than can any other land. What a chorus goes up from our ponds and marshes in spring! The like of it cannot be heard anywhere else under the sun. In Europe it would certainly have made an impression upon the literature. An attentive ear will detect first one variety, then another, each occupying the stage from three or four days to a week. The latter part of April, when the little peeping frogs are in full chorus, one comes upon places, in his drives or walks late in the day, where the air fairly palpitates with sound; from every little marshy hollow and spring run there rises an impenetrable maze or cloud of shrill musical voices. After the peepers, the next frog to appear is the clucking frog, a rather small, dark-brown frog, with a harsh, clucking note, which later in the season becomes the well-known brown wood-frog. Their chorus is heard for a few days only, while their spawn is being deposited. In less than a week it ceases, and I never hear them again till the next April. As the weather gets warmer, the toads take to the water, and set up that long-drawn musical tr-r-r- r-r-r-r-ing note. The voice of the bullfrog, who calls, according to the boys, "jug o' rum," "jug o' rum," "pull the plug," "pull the plug," is not heard much before June. The peepers, the clucking frog, and the bullfrog are the only ones that call in chorus. The most interesting and the most shy and withdrawn of all our frogs and toads is the tree-toad,—the creature that, from the old apple or cherry tree, or red cedar, announces the approach of rain, and baffles your every effort to see or discover it. It has not (as some people imagine) exactly the power of the chameleon to render itself invisible by assuming the color of the object it perches upon, but it sits very close and still, and its mottled back, of different shades of ashen gray, blends it perfectly with the bark of nearly every tree. The only change in its color I have ever noticed is that it is lighter on a light-colored tree, like the beech or soft maple, and darker on the apple, or cedar, or pine. Then it is usually hidden in some cavity or hollow of the tree, when its voice appears to come from the outside.

Most of my observations upon the habits of this creature run counter to the authorities I have been able to consult on the subject.

In the first place, the tree-toad is nocturnal in its habits, like the common toad. By day it remains motionless and concealed; by night it is as alert and active as an owl, feeding and moving about from tree to tree. I have never known one to change its position by day, and never knew one to fail to do so by night. Last summer one was discovered sitting against a window upon a climbing rosebush. The house had not been occupied for some days, and when the curtain was drawn the toad was discovered and closely observed. His light gray color harmonized perfectly with the unpainted woodwork of the house. During the day he never moved a muscle, but next morning he was gone. A friend of mine caught one, and placed it under a tumbler on his table at night, leaving the edge of the glass raised about the eighth of an inch to admit the air. During the night he was awakened by a strange sound in his room. Pat, pat, pat went some object, now here, now there, among the furniture, or upon the walls and doors. On investigating the matter, he found that by some means his tree-toad had escaped from under the glass, and was leaping in a very lively manner about the room, producing the sound he had heard when it alighted upon the door, or wall, or other perpendicular surface.

The home of the tree-toad, I am convinced, is usually a hollow limb or other cavity in the tree; here he makes his headquarters, and passes most of the day. For two years a pair of them frequented an old apple-tree near my house, occasionally sitting at the mouth of a cavity that led into a large branch, but usually their voices were heard from within the cavity itself. On one occasion, while walking in the woods in early May, I heard the voice of a tree-toad but a few yards from me. Cautiously following up the sound, I decided, after some delay, that it proceeded from the trunk of a small soft maple; the tree was hollow, the entrance to the interior being a few feet from the ground. I could not discover the toad, but was so convinced that it was concealed in the tree, that I stopped up the hole, determined to return with an axe, when I had time, and cut the trunk open. A week elapsed before I again went to the woods, when, on cutting into the cavity of the tree, I found a pair of tree-toads, male and female, and a large, shelless snail. Whether the presence of the snail was accidental, or whether these creatures associated together for some purpose, I do not know. The male toad was easily distinguished from the female by its large head, and more thin, slender, and angular body. The female was much the more beautiful, both in form and color. The cavity, which was long and irregular, was evidently their home; it had been nicely cleaned out, and was a snug, safe apartment.

The finding of the two sexes together, under such circumstances and at that time of the year, suggests the inquiry whether they do not breed away from the water, as others of our toads are known at times to do, and thus skip the tadpole state. I have several times seen the ground, after a June shower, swarming with minute toads, out to wet their jackets. Some of them were no larger than crickets. They were a long distance from the water, and had evidently been hatched on the land, and had never been polliwogs. Whether the tree-toad breeds in trees or on the land, yet remains to be determined. [FOOTNOTE: It now (1895) seems well established that both common toads and tree-toads pass the first period of their lives in water as tadpoles, and that both undergo their metamorphosis when very small. As soon as the change is effected, the little toads leave the water and scatter themselves over the country with remarkable rapidity, traveling chiefly by night, but showing themselves in the daytime after showers.]

Another fact in the natural history of this creature, not set down in the books, is that they pass the winter in a torpid state in the ground, or in stumps and hollow trees, instead of in the mud of ponds and marshes, like true frogs, as we have been taught. The pair in the old apple-tree above referred to, I heard on a warm, moist day late in November, and again early in April. On the latter occasion, I reached my hand down into the cavity of the tree and took out one of the toads. It was the first I had heard, and I am convinced it had passed the winter in the moist, mud-like mass of rotten wood that partially filled the cavity. It had a fresh, delicate tint, as if it had not before seen the light that spring. The president of a Western college writes in "Science News" that two of his students found one in the winter in an old stump which they demolished; and a person whose veracity I have no reason to doubt sends me a specimen that he dug out of the ground in December while hunting for Indian relics. The place was on the top of a hill, under a pine-tree. The ground was frozen on the surface, and the toad was, of course, torpid.

During the present season, I obtained additional proof of the fact that the tree-toad hibernates on dry land. The 12th of November was a warm, spring-like day; wind southwest, with slight rain in the afternoon,—just the day to bring things out of their winter retreats. As I was about to enter my door at dusk, my eye fell upon what proved to be the large tree-toad in question, sitting on some low stone-work at the foot of a terrace a few feet from the house. I paused to observe his movements. Presently he started on his travels across the yard toward the lawn in front. He leaped about three feet at a time, with long pauses between each leap. For fear of losing him as it grew darker, I captured him, and kept him under the coal sieve till morning. He was very active at night trying to escape. In the morning, I amused myself with him for some time in the kitchen. I found he could adhere to a window- pane, but could not ascend it; gradually his hold yielded, till he sprang off on the casing. I observed that, in sitting upon the floor or upon the ground, he avoided bringing his toes in contact with the surface, as if they were too tender or delicate for such coarse uses, but sat upon the hind part of his feet. Said toes had a very bungling, awkward appearance at such times; they looked like hands encased in gray woolen gloves much too large for them. Their round, flattened ends, especially when not in use, had a comically helpless look.

After a while I let my prisoner escape into the open air. The weather had grown much colder, and there was a hint of coming frost. The toad took the hint at once, and, after hopping a few yards from the door to the edge of a grassy bank, began to prepare for winter. It was a curious proceeding. He went into the ground backward, elbowing himself through the turf with the sharp joints of his hind legs, and going down in a spiral manner. His progress was very slow: at night I could still see him by lifting the grass; and as the weather changed again to warm, with southerly winds before morning, he stopped digging entirely. The next day I took him out, and put him into a bottomless tub sunk into the ground and filled with soft earth, leaves, and leaf mould, where he passed the winter safely, and came out fresh and bright in the spring.

The little peeping frogs lead a sort of arboreal life, too, a part of the season, but they are quite different from the true tree- toads above described. They appear to leave the marshes in May, and to take to the woods or bushes. I have never seen them on trees, but upon low shrubs. They do not seem to be climbers, but perchers. I caught one in May, in some low bushes a few rods from the swamp. It perched upon the small twigs like a bird, and would leap about among them, sure of its hold every time. I was first attracted by its piping. I brought it home, and it piped for one twilight in a bush in my yard and then was gone. I do not think they pipe much after leaving the water. I have found them early in April upon the ground in the woods, and again late in the fall.