NOTES BY THE WAY. 165 



perfectly with the unpainted wood-work of the house. 

 During the day he never moved a muscle, but next 

 morning he was gone. A friend of mine caught one, 

 and placed it under a tumbler on his table at night, 

 eaving the edge of the glass raised about the eighth 

 of an inch to admit the air. During the night he 

 was awakened by a strange sound in his room. Pat, 

 pat, pat, went some object, now here, now there, 

 among the furniture, or upon the walls and doors. 

 On investigating the matter, he found that by some 

 means his tree-toad had escaped from under the glass, 

 and was leaping in a very lively manner about the 

 room, producing the sound he had heard when it 

 alighted upon the door, or wall, or other perpendicu- 

 lar surface. 



The home of the tree-toad, I am convinced, is usu- 

 ally a hollow limb or other cavity in the tree ; here 

 he makes his headquarters, and passes most of the 

 day. For two years a pair of them frequented an 

 old apple-tree near my house, occasionally sitting at 

 the mouth of a cavity that led into a large branch, 

 but usually their voices were heard from within the 

 cavity itself. On one occasion, while walking in the 

 woods in early May, I heard the voice of a tree-toad 

 but a few yards from me. Cautiously following up 

 the sound, I decided, after some delay, that it pro- 

 ceeded from the trunk of a small soft maple; the 

 tree was hollow, the entrance tc the interior being a 

 few feet from the ground. I could not discover the 

 oad, but was so convinced that it was concealed ID 



