362 COMMON FROGS AND TOADS 



the water with a resounding splash. It is quite 

 astonishing to see how quickly they will people 

 pieces of open ground that are converted into 

 swamps by the onset of the monsoon. For weeks 

 and months before, the ground may have remained 

 seemingly quite dry, with all its grass and weeds 

 baked by the continuous blaze of sunshine, and giving 

 no hint of the presence of any frogs ; but, after a 

 few hours of drenching rain, it will be dotted all 

 over by huge yellow monsters filling the air with 

 a deafening uproar. In some years many heavy 

 thunderstorms take place long before the regular 

 onset of the monsoon, and lure out a certain number 

 of frogs to a premature emergence from which they 

 are fain to retire on the recurrence of continuous 

 dry weather. Almost every year, too, after one 

 of the brief deluges attending a "nor'-wester," the 

 gruntings of a few particularly anticipative in- 

 dividuals are temporarily audible. Like many other 

 animals in tropical regions, they seem often to suffer 

 from epidemic disease, for now and then they will 

 be very scarce for several successive years in which 

 the climatic conditions are highly favourable to their 

 activity, whilst in other seasons, in which defective 

 rainfall must have greatly narrowed the areas con- 

 genial to them, the sounds of their concerts are 

 everywhere audible. 



When it is possible to watch the performers 

 closely it will be found that the concerts are built 



