244 AUGUST. 



air of the utmost sang-froid, raising itself as the 

 weasel approached, received him with several 

 smart thumps upon the head. He fled back, but 

 speedily renewed the attack, and was received in 

 the same style. The assault, battery, and retreat 

 were maintained for at least a quarter of an hour, 

 when the weasel crawled away apparently ex- 

 hausted, and appeared no more. Such is the 

 valour infused by parental instinct into the most 

 weak and timid creatures. 



During this month swarms of young frogs, re- 

 leased from the tadpole state of existence in ditches 

 and pools, are hopping across your path. In the 

 south of England, the marsh frogs begin their 

 chorus about April, and continue it till this time. 

 Just as the tadpole assumes a frog-shape, they 

 become suddenly silent; as if their music was 

 intended as a charm to facilitate the young passing 

 through the transition states, from the spawn to the 

 tadpole, and from the tadpole to the frog. This 

 chorus is very different from the croaking of the 

 common frog, which is seldom heard except in 

 March. It is a regular chorus of many hundreds 

 in concert, which commences at evening and con- 

 tinues all night during those months, having, at a 

 distance, the sound of a wheel eternally going round. 

 Some naturalists, from the difficulty of getting near 

 the creatures while singing, have attributed the 

 sound to a species of grillus ; but any one who will 

 take a few turns on Ditton Marsh, or almost any 

 marshy common of Surrey, on a summer's evening, 



