THE TOAD'S BAGPIPE 55 



tions, and the inflated source of the combined music, 

 will readily appreciate the allusion as applied to the toad. 



There are few who have discovered the peculiar art 

 by which the toad expresses his emotion. Often I have 

 coaxed an encore from him at mid -day by decoying 

 him with a mimic song, which may be almost perfectly 

 produced by combining an ascending prolonged whis- 

 tle, beginning on the tone of second D above middle C, 

 and running up to A, with a droning sound of the voice 

 near the tone of the second F below middle C, although 

 ^ strict adherence to either tone is not necessary. 



It is a surprising and saucy response that we receive 

 down there among the lily- pads, as may be conjectured 

 from my truthful portrait, and the familiar sound that 

 comes up to us thus robbed of its twilight attributes 

 gains nothing by being out of season. But this picture 

 is for naturalists, not for poets. It is the song and not 

 the singer that concerns the poet. 



I cannot close this batrachian page without offering 

 my commiseration to my friends of the South. The 

 frog- music of Louisiana and Florida, as I heard it two 

 years ago, has left its scar upon my memory; for while 

 I recognized many familiar voices and instruments strug- 

 gling in the din of those rainy nights, the great burden 

 of the orchestration seemed borne by a legion of name- 

 less instrumentalists, who, judging from their perform- 

 ances, operated on a sort of primitive guitar, presum- 

 ably consisting of rubber strands stretched across a 

 tomato -can. Yes, as I have said, the spring song of 

 the frog has yet to find its poetic interpreter. But, oh, 

 my poet of the flowery land, beware ! A sonnet from 

 you on this theme' would forever blast your hopes for 

 poetic fame, though it might exalt you as a humorist. 



