The Desert Year

The Contemplative Toad

Chapter Seven The Contemplative Toad The Contemplative Toad Those toads who surprised me by coming from nowhere after our first big rain and who sang their hallelujah chorus on every side have surprised me again. They have disappeared as mysteriously as they came. The desert Hoor and the desert air are as toadless as ever. Obviously, they are creatures as moderate as all amphibia should be, and one night of revelry was enough. The next evening I did, to be sure, hear a few scattered voices, like those of stubborn guests who won't go home when a party is over. But all the rest had lapsed into silence and retired into invisibility. More than a month has passed, and despite one more rain as heavy as that which summoned them forth, not 101 THE CONTEMPLATIVE TOAD one has made himseU heard. Nevertheless, I have a very good way of knowing that I did not dream the night they took over. Forty-eight hours afterward, the largest of my puddles was swarming with tadpoles quite unaware of the fact that fate had assigned them an impossible situation. One more day of hot sun and the puddle was only a damp spot in the sand, covered at its very center with a mass of what had once been potential toads. Obviously the tadpoles had drawn closer and closer together as the puddle shrank, much as a human community might have concentrated itseU as the waters of some rising flood drove all its members to the last remaining area of high ground. And they had been overwhelmed at last by the suffocating air, as human beings might have been by relentless water. But how on earth do any ever survive to carryon the population which is obviously in quite a flourishing state? This puddle was an unusually large one. So far as I know, there was no other larger (and there is certainly no permanent water) within a mile or two of its position. I took it for granted that the tadpoles of this particular species must turn into toads in a remarkably brief period. But however brief it might be, it was obviously not brief enough to be covered by my puddle's duration. These toads, it would appear, 102 THE CONTEMPLATIVE TOAD ought to have become extinct in this region long ago. Obviously, they haven't. Before long, I found that my ignorance was ceasing to be a pleasure. The first thing I discovered was that I need not have determined-as originally I did -to preserve it for a while; it has turned out to be not easy to dispel. My confidence that of course someone could answer all my questions was faith misplaced . Noone, it now appears, knows very much more about my toads than I do. Fortunately, I captured one of the two-inch adults and I kept him prisoner until I could consult Wright and Wright's authoritative check list of American toads and frogs. It was easy enough to identify him as the Sonoran spadefoot (Scaphiopus couchii) who inhabits Arizona, Utah, Mexico, and parts of Texas. He has an eastern relative, not especially uncommon but seldom recognized by the layman. Like all the spadefoots, he is a great digger with his hind legs and he is conveniently distinguished from all the Bufos (the genus to which the common garden toad belongs) by the fact that the contracted pupil of his eye is vertical like a cat's, not round or horizontal like that of the Bufos. There is, then, no trouble about naming him, but the available information does not go much beyond that. He is believed to mate only once a year and al103 THE CONTEMPLATIVE TOAD ways after a summer rain. At other periods he has been accidentally dug up out of the earth. But in what sort of pool does he successfully raise his family ? How much of the time does he remain buried? Does he come out to eat occasionally during the almost year-long period when he is rarely if ever seen? Finally, how does he like the extraordinary existence which he seems to lead? On these questions, the books cover their silence with the air of not having the space to go in for that sort of thing. Queried face to face, the authorities shrug...