TELEGRAPH FORUM (Bucyrus, Ohio) 03 January 07 Students do their best to make a toad hoppy

Picture a cat without any fur. Now, visualize a toad living in a classroom aquarium. Then, I would ask: What do the two have in common?

Neither has fur. Good answer. But that is not the answer.

Both of them have the name Mr. Bigglesworth.

Strange as it may seem, we have accepted the name for our classroom toad. He did not come to us on purpose; nor did we go looking for him.

One morning when we went down to bring the worm bins back to the classroom, the toad sat right in the middle of the sidewalk. October was throwing its weight around. It was 31 degrees. He was motionless. When I stooped down for a closer look, two toes on the left hind quarters moved. That was a signal that he might be resurrected. We brought him inside. For nearly half an hour he was cupped within the hands of a hopeful child.

Voila! He lives.

We have housed him in an aquarium after sending to the woods for some additional soil and leaves so that he might go into his semi-hibernation state. And this little guy took advantage of the situation.

Mr. Bigglesworth -- it could be "Bigalsworth" as Tommy spelled it -- when I asked where the idea had come from, Tommy Hardin explained that in an Austin Powers movie "International Man of Mystery," there was a furless cat by that name. British influence. Never mind that it is an American toad, we borrowed the name. That's what America is all about, right?

What is remarkable is that the toad survived that freezing night. More amazing is that the worms we went outside to bring in have become a food source. We place the worm bin outside when cold promises to come to knock out gnats.

It is of some comfort, knowing that we saved a toad from destruction. We rather torment him, prying him loose from the places where he burrows to show everyone that we truly have a toad survivor.

And, he is much more plump than when we carried his nearly dead carcass inside.

Oh, the joys of man's intervention with wildlife.



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