isa-normaladvance-1909-00247

Description:	THE NORMAL ADVANCE247species which live away from water most of theyear go to the water in the spring to deposittheir eggs. The class is confined to the torridtemperate zones. In the temperate zone theyhibernate in mud or other places where they aresomewhat protected from the cold. Since theycould not go deep enough to keep from beingfrozen, none are found in high latitudes.The Batrachians are divided primarily intothe Labyrinthodonts and the Lassamphibia.The former are exclusively fossil forms extending from the Carboniferous Era into the UpperTriassic. Their bodies were covered with scalesand bony plates. Some were of large size. Inmany species the dentine was folded in a verycomplicated manner, hence the name Labyrinthodonts. The Lassamphibia, which include allrecent forms, have neither scales nor bony platesand the teeth are simple and small. They aredivided by Jordon into four orders as follows:I. Legs absent ApodaII. Legs present.1. Tailed Amphibians.a Gills persistent Protiedaeb Gills not persistent Urodela2. Tailless Amphibians SalientiaThe order, Salientia is divided into eightfamilies, the most important ones being theRanidaeor frogs, the Hylidae or tree frogs, andthe Bufonidae or toads. In all species of Salientia the larvae, known as tadpoles, have tailsand are without legs but in the metamorphosisthe legs are developed and the tails absorbed.In the adult of the Bufonidae or toad familyboth jaws are destitute of teeth. They have noribs, and so cannot carry on respiration as in thehigher vertebrates. Among their distinguishing characteristics are a heavy, squat form short limbs a rough, warty skin and a collection of integumentary glands lying behind thehead, and known as parotids.There are fourteen genera of the Bufonidae,of which we possess only one, the characteristicgenus. Bufo. This genus includes manyspecies several of which are found in the UnitedStates. They are, however, mostly confined tothe Western States. Except B. quercicus, foundin the south from North Carolina to Florida,only one species is commonly met with east ofthe Mississippi. This is B. lentiginosus. Coperecognizes four varieties of this species, B. lentiginosus lengtiginosus, the southern toad, B. lentiginosus woodhousei of the Rocky Mts B. len-. tiginosus fowleri, common in New Englandand New York and B. lentiginosus American-us, the American toad, found everywhere, bothnorth and south, east of the Rockies. None ofthe other varieties have been found in Indianaexcept fowleri, which has been reported fromNew Harmony. These varieties are much alikein appearance and the untrained observerwould scarcely be able to distinguish one fromanother.The American toad, our common variety, isextremely variable in color usually yellow-brown, light or dark in shade, with or withoutpatches and bands of lighter color. A lightvertebral stripe may be present, and there maybe much bright red and yellow on the warts.There are usually four irregular dark spots oneach side of the back. The under parts are lightand more or less spotted. The throat of themale is black. The female is much brighter•and more variegated in color than the male.The male measures 2y2 to 3 inches in length the female is much larger.The mature toad is essentially a terrestrialanimal, never entering the water except for abrief time during the mating season. It appears with the warm days of spring and is seenuntil the approach of the cool days of the autumn. Almost immediately on its appearanceit repairs to the water to deposit its eggs. Thenumbers which migrate to even a small pond isremarkable. As many as 356 toads have beencounted on the shores of a pond containingscarcely a half acre. The eggs are laid in a longstring, enveloped in a transparent, gelatinoustube, and are fertilised as they are laid. Thenumber of eggs is very large. Dr. Hodge, ofClark University, counted the eggs of twospecimens those of one numbered 7,587, of theother 11,545. Comparatively few of these eggsdevelop into mature toads. It is a rule of na-
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/34277
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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