World Notes BRITAIN

Birds do it, bees do it, but every year tens of thousands of British toads get squashed trying to do it. During migration from their winter woodland homes to springtime breeding ponds, the lovelorn toads frequently croak while crossing the country's roads. Shocked at this tragedy, Britain's Fauna and Flora Preservation Society has opened the country's first toad tunnel in Buckinghamshire. After a week of operation, officials were optimistic that the underpass would do the trick.

To be sure, as many as 1,000 of the amphibians at first congregated dubiously at the entrance to the tunnel of love, hesitant to make a move. But "after all, a tunnel is a nasty, alien thing," said Society Spokesman John Burton. Once the toads got the hang of it, however, they hopped right through to their assignations.

Four years of research went into the passageway under a road near the River Thames, which should help some 10,000 toads to meet their mates in one piece. Puffed up by its initial success, the F.F.P.S. hopes to open several dozen more tunnels at toad crossings all over England. It is already chewing over the idea of opening a terrapin underpass in the U.S.