20 FAMILIAR FEATURES OF THE ROADSIDE. 



times change to extremely pale tints.* The only 

 "crickets" which I have ever seen, however, were 

 grass-green and decidedly dark-spotted, with Jong 

 narrow heads and prominent eyes. This little frog 

 also sings in the early spring in the same orchestra 

 with the other peeper. His tones are not so pure, 

 though, and they are pitched, I have noticed, in a 

 lower key ; they are loud, but not sufficiently so to 

 be heard at a great distance. The Acris gryllus 

 has a rattling, cricketlike note,f which can not 

 possibly be mistaken for the smooth, liquid whistle 

 of Pickering's hyla. He remains in the high grasses 

 surrounding the marsh, and 

 seldom if ever ascends trees. 

 He is not in New England. 



My sketch of the Sleepy 

 Hollow bridge shows just one of those swampy 

 spots in which the Savannah cricket finds a spring 

 retreat exactly suited to his taste. My earliest rec- 

 ollection of this cricketlike frog is associated with 

 this old roadway and the grasses and rushes which 



* Like the chameleon, the tree toad changes color to match its 

 surroundings, of course as a protection against its enemies. Thus 

 on a tree trunk the creature will appear brown, but among the 

 leaves it becomes greenish. 



t A note so exactly like that of the cricket that we might think 

 it was a cricket singing ; but the tone is less shrill, more powerful, 

 and mellow. 



