TOAD.⁠This animal belongs to the Anurous division of the Amphibia, and toads and frogs are the only representatives of the Anura or Batrachia indigenous to Britain. To an ordinary observer the toad is proved to be an amphibian by its moist soft skin, an anuran or tailless amphibian by the want of a separate tail. The toad differs from the frog in the following points: It has no teeth on either of its jaws or on the roof of its mouth, while the frog has a series of fine teeth on the upper jaw and also teeth on the palate; the tongue in both animals is attached in front and free behind, but that of the frog is forked at its free extremity, that of the toad is not; the skin of the toad is rough with large protuberant warts, while that of the frog is smooth; the body of the toad is more globular and puffy than that of the frog; the hind legs in the toad are shorter, and the posterior digits not so completely webbed, the animal being more terrestrial in its habits than the frog. In the toad, as in the frog, there are four digits anteriorly, five posteriorly. The warts of the toad's skin contain large cutaneous glands, which secrete a thick yellowish fluid with acrid properties, capable of irritating and producing slight inflammation on the human skin. The use of this secretion is probably to protect the toad from being devoured by carnivorous animals. Like other Amphibia, it has a large membranous bladder communicating with the terminal part of the intestine the allantoic bladder, in which fluid accumulates, probably from the kidneys, though the ureters do not open directly into the bladder. The toad, when handled or alarmed in any way, ejects the contents of its bladder. Owing to these peculiarities and its appearance, the animal is commonly regarded with loathing, and credited with far more poisonous properties than it possesses. In its breeding habits the toad resembles the frog: its eggs are fertilized externally at the ​moment of extrusion, as in the frog, the parents resorting to the water for the purpose of reproduction. The ova are laid in spring, and are arranged, not in shapeless masses, but in a string containing a double series of eggs adher ing by their gelatinous envelopes; the string extends to a length of three or four feet. The tadpoles are similar to those of the frog, but blacker; their metamorphosis takes place in the same manner, the three pairs of external gills being first absorbed and replaced for a time by internal gills, which are in their turn lost, the branchial slits being closed by the coalescence of the opercular membrane with the skin. The metamorphosis is complete in autumn. The toad is carnivorous, feeding on flies and other insects and worms. It hibernates in winter, passing its period of torpidity in holes or burrows in the earth. The finding of toads in a state of hibernation has given rise to stories of their being found in the centre of trunks of trees or imbedded in solid rock. The myth of the jewel in the head (Shakespeare) is probably founded on the brightness of the eyes, in which the iris is flame-coloured. There are two kinds of toad in Britain, the Common Toad, which is almost black in colour, and the Natter-jack Toad, which is lighter, smaller, and has a bright yellow line along the middle of the back. The length of the common toad is 3| inches, of the natter-jack 2f inches. The male natter-jack possesses a bladder or vocal sack beneath the throat communicating with the mouth, which acts as a resonator to its voice; its cry is " gluck-gluck." The vocal sack is absent in the common toad, and only in completely developed in the Green Toad of the Continent.