The upper jaw is armed with
minute teeth, and there are two teeth in the centre of the lower jaw,
the remaining portions of the jaw being armed with two exceedingly
sharp-edged bony plates. In place of a tongue, it has a round muscular
process with a rough flat disc the size of a halfpenny.
It is common all over the pampas, ranging as far south as the Rio
Colorado in Patagonia. In the breeding season it congregates in pools,
and one is then struck by their extraordinary vocal powers, which they
exercise by night. The performance in no way resembles the series of
percussive sounds uttered by most batrachians. The notes it utters are
long, as of a wind instrument, not unmelodious, and so powerful as to
make themselves heard distinctly a mile off on still evenings. After the
amorous period these toads retire to moist places and sit inactive,
buried just deep enough to leave the broad green back on a level with
the surface, and it is then very difficult to detect them. In this
position they wait for their prey--frogs, toads, birds, and small
mammals. Often they capture and attempt to swallow things too large for
them, a mistake often made by snakes. In very wet springs they sometimes
come about houses and lie in wait for chickens and ducklings. In
disposition they are most truculent, savagely biting at anything that
comes near them; and when they bite they hang on with the tenacity of a
bulldog, poisoning the blood with their glandular secretions.
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