Chapter 12 Summary

This essay begins with a brilliant, but humorous description of the life of a toad. Orwell at first describes the hibernation of a toad, which generally draws to an end in time for the Spring mating season. However, Orwell remarks, occasionally he has dug up a toad in summer, who has somehow missed the trigger of awakening, whether it is the quaking of the earth or a change in temperature. He then proceeds to describe the mating of toads, who have difficulty from distinguishing another toad from a plain stick and, in the acting of mating, male from female- until, of course, they have taken some time to commingle with their object of choice and, in some way, identified their gender and either stayed or passed on to another.

Orwell tells us that Spring is not a popular subject in his essays. People...