Lesson 29 The Frog and the Toad Compared

Fred, can you tell me the difference between frogs and toads? asked Norah. "They seem to me to be so much alike that I am sure I could not tell one from the other."

I think I can make it clear to you, Norah, said Fred. "We had a good lesson about these animals this morning."

First, then, the toad is larger and more clumsily built than the frog. Its legs too are shorter, so that it cannot leap so far as the frog. The frog's hind legs are usually quite four inches long, and he leaps with these long legs. The toad's leap is only a very short jump. It is slow and awkward in its movements. The toad's feet are not webbed, so that it is not such a good swimmer as the frog. It lives mostly on land, and goes to the water only in the spring to lay its eggs.

Then, too, said Will, "it is easy to tell a toad from a frog by the look of its skin. A frog has a smooth skin, but a toad's skin looks as if it were covered with thick warts or pimples. The frog's skin is either a greenish-yellow or brown above, and yellowish-white on the under parts. The general color of the toad's warty skin is a blackish-gray, with an olive-green tint. The under parts are yellow. Frogs and toads both have moist skins, but the toad can throw out over its skin a white liquid which has a most unpleasant smell."

Many people used to say, said Fred, "that this liquid was a deadly poison, and because of that, no poor animal has been so cruelly treated as the toad. It is not poisonous, but it will make the tender skin smart if it touches it, and even a dog will quickly drop a toad if he takes one up in his mouth. I saw old Ponto do it once, and didn't he howl and shake himself."

The frog has teeth in the upper jaw, said Will, "but the toad has no teeth at all. It has, however, a pair of well-grown ears, which the frog never has."

The toad, like the frog, is a most useful animal in the garden. It preys upon grubs and vermin of all kinds—slugs, caterpillars, earwigs, beetles, worms— nothing comes amiss. Before winter approaches the toad leaves off eating, and hides itself away in a hole in the wall, or under a stone, where it lies torpid till the frost and snow are all gone.

Do you know, Norah, asked Fred, "that the little newts, or efts, or effets, which we find sometimes in the ponds and ditches, are all animals of the same kind as the frog and the toad? The newts, however, have tails, which frogs and toads never have."

SUMMARY

The toad is larger, more clumsily built, and more awkward in its movements than the frog.

The frog is a swimmer. Its hind feet are webbed.

The frog has a smooth skin.

The frog has teeth in the upper jaw.

The frog leaps on his long hind legs.

The frog spends much of its time in the water.

The toad has no web between its toes.

The toad has a rough, warty skin.

The toad has no teeth.

The toad moves slowly, with short jumps.

The toad goes to the water only in the spring to lay its eggs.