SHOWERS OF FROGS 



ranges from the south of France to Japan by way of 

 southern Europe and Asia Minor. Its northernmost 

 haunt is the south of Sweden. The little frog is not more 

 than two inches long, and indeed tree frogs as a rule 

 are small. This particular species, though it lives in 

 trees, descends to ponds to lay its eggs, from which 

 emerge in due course tadpoles. One Hohenheim, who 

 modestly styled himself Aureolus Theophrastus Bom- 



AUSTRALIAN GREEN TREE FROG. 



bastes Paracelsus, and is better known by the last of his 

 four invented names, thought or more probably only said, 

 that frogs exist in the firmament from which others 

 arise, and are thrown down by the impact of tempest ; 

 that they also produce seed in May which falls upon the 

 ground and from which tree-frogs are produced. This 

 is one of the oldest versions of the old " shower " theory 

 of the birth, or at least migration, of frogs ; it is of course 

 to be explained by the simultaneous hatching of in- 

 numerable frogs which " wander at will o'er the 

 meadows " in search of suitable trees. So Rose! von 

 Rosenhof, a historian of the frogs of Germany in 1750, 



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