EARLY WILD FLOWERS, CATKINS. 21 



crowd its borders. Here in early spring Acris gryl- 

 lus " crepitates " during the twilight hour to its 

 heart's content ; here also, later in the season, the 

 tree toad sings his pathetic, persuasive, " bleating " 

 song a song which lures one to linger by the 

 old picket fence and recall Irving's story of poor 

 superstitious Ichabod Crane, whose cranium came 

 near being smashed by Brom Bone's terrible pum- 

 pkin. We wonder if there were any frogs sing- 

 ing on that eventful autumn evening! I have no 

 doubt whatever that even if the frogs were silent the 

 crickets were not, and certainly CEcanthus niveus 

 must have sung if the night were not too cold. Irv- 

 ing records the fact that Ichabod did hear a few mid- 

 night notes " occasionally the chirp of a cricket, or 

 perhaps the guttural twang of a bullfrog " (but this 

 was Rana Catesbiana, not our Acris) " from a neigh- 

 boring marsh, . . . and a groan it was but the rub- 

 bing of one huge bough upon another, as they were 

 swayed about by the breeze." Poor Ichabod ! I know 

 just how he must have felt, for the rubbing together 

 of two big tree boughs in the forest at nightfall is 

 about the most ghostly, blood-curdling kind of music 

 I know of ; it is only to be paralleled by the hollow, 

 grinding, groaning sound of a ferryboat as it clumsily 

 enters the slip. 



Sleepy Hollow is quite as quaint and sleepy to-day 



