80 THE RING OF NATURE 



through air and water to the other frogs to resume 

 their chorus. 



These frogs in the blackthorn dingle are late this 

 year. The pond is already half full, as it would 

 seem, of the spawn of earlier frogs, and as I listen 

 to the rapidly growing chorus again, the short, high 

 yelp of the toad breaks in. A hotter sound this 

 than the March croaking of the frog, and the 

 spawning time of the toads is usually a fortnight 

 later than that of the frogs. But one year I saw 

 frogs and toads both in the midst of their spawning 

 on the same day. The sun had evidently delayed 

 to shine till after the frogs' time, and then had 

 come out strong with the call to frogs and toads 

 together. 



So excited and thronged were the rival 

 amphibians that they did not know one another 

 for scions of different houses, and you saw strange 

 love-making between Montagues and Capulets and 

 Capulets and Montagues. I doubt, however, 

 whether cross-bred progeny of toad and ' hop- 

 toad ' has often if ever been noted. As it 

 happened on that day, at about three in the 

 afternoon, the toads all began to climb out of the 

 pond and make for the bushes. Some carried 

 frogs on their backs, but the latter, not relishing 

 an advance into the interior, dropped off and made 

 back to the water, where they met and passed 

 toads that had torn themselves from their more 

 aquatic loves to join the landward route march. 

 I went to the pond a few days after. The frogs 



