creeds; you must keep on
believing in the weird underground dwarfs; for I am going to tell you of
one that the cold calculating Professor Science has at last accepted,
and that lives in your own back-yard. That is, the Cat's-eye Toad or
Spadefoot. It is much like a common Toad, but a little smoother, the
digging spade on its hind foot is bigger and its eye, its beautiful
gold-stone eye, has the pupil up and down like that of a Cat, instead of
level as in its cousin, the warty Hoptoad.

But the wonderful thing about the Cat's-eye is that it spends most of
its life underground, coming out in the early springtime for a few days
of the most riotous honeymoon in some small pond, where it sings a loud
chorus till mated, lays a few hundred eggs, to be hatched into tadpoles,
then backs itself into its underground world by means of the boring
machine on its hind feet, to be heard no more that season, and seen no
more, unless some one chance to dig it out, just as Hans in the story
dug out the mole-gnome.

In the fairy tale the Shepherd-boy was rewarded by the gnome for digging
him out; for he received both gold and precious stones. But our gnome
does not wish us to dig him out; nevertheless, if you do, you will be
rewarded with a golden fact, and a glimpse of two wonderful jewel eyes.

According to one who knows him well, the Cat's-eye buries itself far
underground, and sleeps days, or weeks, _perhaps years_ at a time. Once
a grave-digger found a Cat's-eye three feet two inches down in the earth
with no way out.

How and when are we then to find this strange creature? Only during his
noisy honeymoon in April.

Do you know the soft trilling whistle of the common Hoptoad in May? The
call of the Cat's-eye is of the same style but very loud and harsh, and
heard early in April. If on some warm night in springtime, you hear a
song which sounds like a cross between a Toad's whistle and a Chicken's
squawk, get a searchlight and go quietly to the place. The light will
help you to come close, and in the water up to his chin, you will see
him, his gold-stone eyes blazing like jewels and his throat blown out
like a mammoth pearl, each time he utters the "squawk" which he intends
for a song. And it is a song, and a very successful one, for a visit to
the same pond a week or two later, will show you--not the Cat's-eye or
his mate, they have gone a-tunnelling--but a swarm of little black
pin-like tadpole Cat's-eyes, born and bred in the g