Wben Grass is Green 



ing disks on the ends of its toes, and so can hold 

 on safely to surfaces to which the little spring-tide 

 rattler could not adhere. Pickering's hyla is an 

 aquatic creature at the outset, but the water- 

 nursery is in time deserted and the hyla is not only 

 a land animal, but an arboreal one at that. At 

 times I have seen them on the ground among the 

 dead leaves, but my experience leads me to con- 

 clude they are generally in the bushes or on trees. 

 Certainly they are at home there, and you have but 

 to attempt to capture one with your hand to real- 

 ize what remarkable leaping power is theirs. This 

 little tree-toad, which is scarcely an inch long, yel- 

 low, and with a crooked cross upon his back, makes 

 a most interesting pet. It will live in a tumbler, 

 with a few drops of water to bathe in at times, and 

 asks no more elaborate rations than one house-fly a 

 day. Given that much attention they will sing 

 cheerily after their fashion and so loudly, perhaps, 

 as to become tiresome. As you look at this little 

 creature it impresses you by its general delicacy, 

 and suggests that it belongs to the warm nights 

 of summer and would succumb at the first touch 

 of frost. But it is really our hardiest species. It 

 often sings when basking in winter sunshine. I 

 have often heard them when the weather was 

 really cold, but the little hylas were not. They 

 had sheltered nooks where only the sunshine 

 could creep in, and when it did the hyla and the 

 .sunbeam made merry together. 

 144 



