Travels Of The Giant

Toad

Letter to the Editor IN the interesting review of Mr. Win ston Turner’s account of conditions on Guadalcanal, appearing on page 6 of your April issue, is an inaccuracy about the giant toad.

So far from being introduced to the Solomons from Java, it came from Fiji, having been sent there by this Depart ment. The toad is of South American origin, and could not, therefore, come from the East Indies, where it does not occur.

As your issue for last November refers correctly to this amphibian having been sent from Fiji to the Ellice Islands and Guadalcanal I think you will agree that for the sake of accuracy an editorial comment was due about Mr. Turner’s erroneous record of the source of the toad.

I am, etc.,

H. W. Jack,

Director of Agriculture, Fiji.

Suva, 24/5/43.

EDITORIAL NOTE.—Apologies to Fiji and the enterprising Department of Agri culture. The editor, who has met the toad in Fiji and elsewhere, and knows the reptile’s interesting history, should have corrected Mr. Turner’s error—but, in the shorthanded bustle of wartime conditions, he missed It.