TREE FROGS. 321 



ones. We read in Wallace, " Travels on the Amazon," 

 that one of these Transatlantic disturbers of the peace 

 " makes a noise something like what one would expect 

 a Frog to make, namely, a dismal croak ; but the 

 sounds uttered by the others were like no animal noise 

 that I ever heard before. A distant railway train 

 approaching, and a blacksmith hammering on his anvil, 

 are what they exactly resemble. They are such true 

 imitations, that when lying half dozing in the canoe, 

 I have often fancied myself at home hearing the 

 familiar sounds of the approaching mail-train, and the 

 hammering of the boiler-makers at the ironworks." 

 Talk about tapage nocturne ! 



Green Frogs are not invariably green (if I may 

 be permitted to speak thus), any more than a black- 

 bird is invariably black, or an etymology invariably 

 true. They can be of a beautiful turquoise blue. 

 These cerulean Frogs are of great value : I think that 

 as much as a hundred francs has been given for one. 

 They are to be obtained from a man who keeps a 

 crockery shop in Mentone. He has a " speciality " of 

 blue frogs. People accuse him, so I hear, of dyeing 

 the epidermis of the animals by making them swallow 

 some pigment. The pottery man denies this : he says 

 that they are quite natural, like a green pink or a 

 twelve inch waist. 



Perhaps this ingenious person, if he finds that 

 the public appreciate his novelties, may produce, or 

 rather discover, Frogs of any desired tint to match a 

 lady's costume ; scarlet frogs for an anarchist, 

 orange for a unionist. Just think what a "shindy" 

 there would be if an orange Frog were to 

 appear in a ditch tenanted by the ordinary green 



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