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Toad The Wet Sprocket or Something




Sort of plant related and very odd....

	I have a 185 gallon pond in the yard, heavily planted-water
lillys, cattails, lotus, cardinal flowers. I have the bog plants in
baskets on a shelf in the pond so that the soil line of the basket is
right at the water line.

	Anyway-there are a lot of toads in the neighborhood. One took up
residence about a week ago, spent all day and half of the night singing-a
very nice touch. 2 nights ago it rained which must have brought more of
them out.

	The singing stopped during the night. Yesterday I found one
hopping around on the basket. Another was locked in an embrace with a
third, <blush> for lack of a more descriptive term, a "69" position. One
of them was dead, upside down, drowned I am guessing, the other right side
up and had a death embrace around the dead ones middle. I fished them out
with a net as I didn't want a dead toad upsetting the pond balance.

	What I'm wondering is-

	1). I am guessing these were 2 males fighting over the female? Its 
            been almost 24 hours and the live one still hasn't released
	    its grip on the dead one. Are males that territorial? Will he
            eventually give it up so I can bury the dead one?

	2). Or was this a mating by an immature male that went bad?

	3). Will these toads eat the sailfin mollies Im trying to raise 
            in here and sell to local pet stores? The mollies do a great
            job on the mosquito larvae. I haven't seen them but my
            duckweed is getting a little out of hand so they may be 
            hiding and just not visible.


       Gerry Skau
       ANS BigDial Engineering

       Those who are faithless know the pleasures of love, it is the
       faithful who know love's tragedies.
         - Oscar Wilde