268 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



oaks from four to six inches in di- 

 ameter. I never saw such a beautiful 

 sight as the woods presented for the 

 next few days. It was beyond descrip- 

 tion. 



I am also sending a photograph of 

 a good reflection in a pond. It was 

 taken with an old plate that had been 

 standing in the plate holder for two 

 years, so the upper right-hand corner 

 was light struck. (Not clear enough 

 for reproduction in a cut.) — Ed. 



Finding a Tree Frog. 



BY EDMUND J. SAWYER, SCHENECTADY, 

 NEW YORK. 



The illusiveness of the tree frog has 

 been too often dwelt upon to need more 



One day, on examining what seemed 

 a good place for a house wren's nest, I 

 surprised myself and the tree frog 

 whose picture you see here. His re- 

 treat was an old auger hole in a tall 

 post which with others supported one 

 side of an ice house on a farm. The 

 hole was about five feet up and went 

 through the post ; the frog was near the 

 middle. Poking in with a stick I gently 

 urged him to crawl out on the opposite 

 side where my camera was focused. 

 At the sunny opening he paused, mule- 

 like, and it required almost a shove 

 from the rear to induce him entirely 

 into the light. At the click of the 

 camera he deliberately crawled out of 

 sight again into the hole. 



THE TREE FROG I SURPRISED. 



than passing attention here. In the 

 woods, their proper haunts, I have 

 never seen a single one, though I have 

 often tried to steal a march on the 

 singers. As an easy job I much prefer 

 finding humming birds' nests. Tbe 

 animal I mean is the true tree frog, the 

 strikingly black and gray, toad-like fel- 

 low that you find ( ?) in dark holes 

 of tree trunks in sunny weather, out- 

 side on the bark or on the branches on 

 cloudy days ; not the spry little pink- 

 ish chaps which we often see on the 

 dead leaves and leaf mould. 



Meteoric Plants. 



BY DR. WM. WHITMAN BAILEY, BROWN 

 UNIVERSITY, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND. 



It is a fact well known to flower 

 lovers that certain plants, abundant one 

 year, may not be found again in the 

 same place, or anywhere else, for sev- 

 eral seasons after. In many cases these 

 are at times in such quantities that one 

 cannot account for their lapse at others 

 on the ground of injudicious picking. 

 The phenomenon has deeper, and to 

 the writer, unknown causes. He does 

 not propose at this time to theorize 



