318 MARY H. HINCKLEY, NOTES ON TIIE PEEPING FROG.. 



I have not often heard the piping repeated after dark in the autumn, the nights being 

 generally too cool. The frogs are most active and musical at this season, on those muggy 

 days when the south wind drives low-flying clouds across the sky ; they are evidently in 

 sympathy with this peculiar warmth and moisture. Above the rush of the wind, as it 

 sweeps through the wood, stripping the dead leaves from the trees, whirling and scatter- 

 ing them before it like a flock of birds, the shrill voice of this little frog makes itself heard. 

 Guided by their piping I have several times found them clinging to the brown oak leaves 

 fallen from the trees above, and lodged in the top branches of the blueberry and alder 

 bushes growing beneath them ; the frogs, accidently or with intention, choosing a position 

 where, if silent, detection would be almost impossible. As the awakening of Pickeringii 

 accompanies the first bland days that come with the higher circling sun of approaching 

 spring, so their subdued notes, in harmony with the year grown faded and silent, are associ- 

 ated with the mild days that linger latest in the autumn. 



The chances of finding the frogs in a torpid state are few, both on account of color and 

 size. Whenever I have seen them among the fallen leaves, it has been the result of acci- 

 dent. I once happened on one in winter under the leaves collected in the deep rut of a 

 cart path in the wood ; the frog was without motion and apparently dead, but the warmth 

 of my hand soon affected him ; the nostrils showed faintly at first the action of air passing 

 through them, the inferior eyelid began to lower, and the frog soon developed an activ- 

 ity that threatened my losing him and seriously interfered with further observation. On 

 reaching home and exposing him to the warmth within doors he soon gave voice with 

 energy. The frogs kept in the house in a torpid condition during the winter, whenever 

 exposed to a temperature of 50° would soon come out from under the moss, where 

 they secreted themselves, and pipe, evidently under the impression that spring had come. 

 The young frogs do not reach their growth the year of their birth, although the females lay 

 eggs the following spring. 



Explanation of Plate xxviii. 



Fig. 1. Hijla Pickeringii, tadpole, first day, natural size 5 mm. long. 



Fig. 2. Mouth of tcutyole, enlarged. 



Fig. 3. Single tooth of fringed fold, much enlarged. 



Fig. 4. Part of fringed fold, enlarged. 



Fig. 5. Adult female. 



Fig. 6. Frogs showing vocal sac inflated and collapsed. 



Fig. 7. Adult male. 



The figures in water show the eggs and tadpoles from time of hatching to the young frog. 



