FROGS. 49 



long conversations and strange doings reported of the 

 brownies and pixies, were these nothing but frogs with 

 the power of standing and walking upright. But such 

 an argument fails to take into consideration the united 

 power of superstition and imagination. Have not elaborate 

 ghost stories originated upon no more solid basis than a 

 shadow upon a wall, a fluttering garment, or a wreath of 

 evening mist ? Are not the Irish peasantry full of stories of 

 the most detailed adventures with fairies, and are not all 

 popular myths built up on the most slender foundations ? 

 The frightened peasant who, returning from work in the 

 gloaming, first came upon a tribe of frogs walking about 

 like human beings, would, upon reaching home, scared out 

 of his senses, magnify what he had seen. Not content with 

 describing the tribe of little men, clad in green and brown 

 jerkins, he would be sure to invent further wonders in the 

 way of conversation, and, as his story spread, so it would 

 grow, until the existence of a race of brownies would become 

 locally believed in. The next rustic who came upon the 

 tribe of frogs would of course outvie the first discoverer 

 in the fulness of his details ; and thus we can see how, upon 

 the foundation afforded by the frogs who had not yet 

 lost their power of walking upright, the whole super- 

 structure of brownies, pixies, and elves would naturally be 

 raised. 



No one who has closely watched the habits of a frog can 

 doubt that he possesses great thinking powers, and a fund 

 of information, inherited or acquired. His habit of sitting 

 motionless is clearly identical with that of the philosophic 

 thinker. There can be no reason why he should so long 

 remain in the same attitude, save that he is meditating. 



W.L.-V1I. 



