At first the children showed a dislike to touch the toad on account of getting warts, but they soon learned that the fluid which the toad expels when he is picked up suddenly is harmless—and produced no warts—but there is a liquid which exudes from the toad when he is in severe pain (his means of self-defense) that burns the mucous membrane and causes stinging pain.
Animals, generally speaking, are aware of this fact, and if you watch a dog play with or tease a toad, you will see that he does not bite him, but simply puts his paw on him. The skunk, too, is most careful, and rolls the toad on the grass to wipe off this caustic fluid.
Toads during the process of development shed their outer skins every four or five weeks. Adult toads shed theirs about four times a year. This skin is shed in one piece, much as a man removes his shirt, and is then swallowed.
The tongue of a toad is fastened in front of his mouth, which helps greatly to catch his food, as he shoots his tongue out and seizes it. He does not drink like other creatures, but absorbs water through the pores of his skin. If kept in a dry place for even a few days, he will grow thin and die; but if a toad has proper environment he will live to be very old.
Toads do not breed, or produce their kind, until they are 3 or 4 years old. When at this age Miss Toad, or Frog, awakens from her long winter’s sleep, she feels hungry, and glad, perhaps, that she has lived through the winter, for she feels life within her. Undoubtedly she is glad and happy to be awake, and off she goes to search for food and friends.
Perhaps she finds Mr. Toad, who, too, feels life stirring within him; he also feels the joy of spring, so together they go to the breeding pond.
Like Mrs. Buttercup, Mrs. Toad has within her body a little nest where little seeds or eggs have been kept and have been growing, and now that the time has come when they need awakening to a new life, they need life from the Father Frog just as the buttercup needed pollen from the stamen.
Mr. Toad (or Frog), too, is stirred by this new and wonderful life giving desire within him—this desire to mate—and when Mrs. Toad (or Frog) feels the eggs are to be expelled, he comes very close to her, and in order to fertilize every egg before it goes into the water, he holds her fast behind the arm, and as they are expelled he pours over them his life giving fluid, which enters every tiny egg and gives it life—a new life.
In a few days the eggs begin to grow; they are all incased in a colorless, transparent jellylike substance, which serves as food for the tadpole while forming, and also for protection. They are spherical in shape, and in ten days the pond will swarm with tiny tadpoles.
Mrs. Frog lays between 500 and 1,000 eggs at one time; Mrs. Fish, however, is still more prolific, for she lays 1,000,000 eggs. Mrs. Fish lays her eggs in the water. She cleans a place by blowing all rubbish away with her fins, and there she deposits her eggs. Many of these float away before they can be fertilized by Mr. Fish.