CHAPTER X 



A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO HEAR THIS SPRING 



THE frogs ! You can have no spring until you 

 hear the frogs. The first shrill notes, heard 

 before the ice is fairly out of the marshes, 

 will be the waking call of the hylas, the tiny tree- 

 frogs that later on in the summer you will find in the 

 woods. Then, as the spring advances and this sil- 

 very sleigh-bell jingle tinkles faster, other voices 

 will join in the soft croak of the spotted leopard 

 frogs, the still softer melancholy quaver of the com- 

 mon toad, and away down at the end of the scale the 

 deep, solemn bass of the great bullfrog saying, " Go 

 round ! Better go round ! " 



II 



You must hear, besides the first spring notes of the 

 bluebird and the robin, four bird songs this spring. 

 First (1) the song of the wood thrush or the hermit 

 thrush, whichever one lives in your neighborhood. 

 No words can describe the purity, the peacefulness, 

 the spiritual quality of the wood thrush's simple 

 " Come to me." It is the voice of the 

 tender twilight, the voice of the tran- 



