FIELD BOOK OF PONDS AND STREAMS 



can be heard for half a mile. As one approaches, the chorus 

 ends, but after a brief silence voices start up here and there, 

 and if it is quiet enough, a voice finally rises from the grass 

 hillock at one's feet. The flashlight may not reveal the frog 

 at first, but after continued scrutiny, his white vocal sac 

 shines forth in the light (Fig, 302). Clinging there, swollen 

 up like a pouter pigeon, he will keep on uttering his call in the 

 full glare of the light so long as no sound or movement dis- 

 turbs him. After one peeper is found, a dozen more are 

 usually discovered in all positions, one in the center of a lily 

 flower, others on the floating pads or half-way up the iris 

 leaves. 



The males come to the breeding ponds before the females, 

 and always seem to be more numerous. Peepers begin to 

 mate about April i , continuing till the first or second week in 

 May. They deposit their eggs singly, ' never in masses, 

 among leaves and grass in shallow water. When peepers are 

 in captivity they sometimes lay their eggs in small clusters. 



Life history. — Spring peeper tadpoles begin transforming 

 and coming on land in July when they are little half-inch 

 frogs. The adults leave the water earlier, scattering into moist 

 shadowy places, and nothing is heard of them except a few 

 single notes uttered in autumn, before they disappear into 

 hibernation. 



They will live all winter in damp ferneries or moss-gardens, 

 climbing the glass sides of the fernery, often singing a few 

 notes in the evening. 



Size. — The male is about an inch long, the female slightly 

 larger. 



Range. — Common, eastern and central North America ; west- 

 ward to Manitoba; southward to South Carolina and Louis- 

 iana. 



Cricket frog, Acris gryllus. — The cricket frog is a tree frog 

 which has such small toe pads that it cannot climb trees, but 

 it can take far higher leaps in air than any crickets can. Its 



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