The nearest of the moist green low-lying spots I have described as
lying south of us, between our house and Canada Seca, was not more
than twenty minutes' walk from the gate.
It was a flat, oval-shaped
area of about fifty acres, and kept its vivid green colour and
freshness when in January the surrounding land was all of a rusty
brown colour. It was to us a delightful spot to run about and play on,
and though the golden plover did not come there it was haunted during
the summer by small flocks of the pretty buff-coloured sandpiper, a
sandpiper with the habits of a plover, one, too, which breeds in the
arctic regions and spends half the year in southern South America.
This green area would become flooded after heavy rains. It was then
like a vast lake to us, although the water was not more than about
three feet deep, and at such times it was infested with the big
venomous toad-like creature called _escuerzo_ in the vernacular, which
simply means toad, but naturalists have placed it in quite a different
family of the batrachians and call it _Ceratophrys ornata_ It is toad-
like in form but more lumpish, with a bigger head; it is big as a
man's fist, of a vivid green with black symmetrical markings on its
back, and primrose-yellow beneath. A dreadful looking creature, a toad
that preys on the real or common toads, swallowing them alive just as
the hamadryad swallows other serpents, venomous or not, and as the
Cribo of Martinique, a big non-venomous serpent, kills and swallows
the deadly fer-de-lance.
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