THE TREE-TOAD. 137 



must also be less elevated above that of the working 

 classes than it is in the Old Country. But things will 

 probably alter as age creeps upon the young States, and 

 as men of leisure arise, who shall really have time, not 

 merely to skim the surface of the various departments of 

 knowledge, but to sound their depths, and bring up from 

 below some of those rarer pearls, which long intellectual 

 labour alone secures, but which even unintellectual men 

 can admire, and are willing both to praise and purchase. 



Newhaven stands on a broad sandy and gravelly flat, 

 which extends along the head of one of those numerous 

 bays which, at short distances, indent nearly the whole 

 of the Atlantic border of the New England States. 

 The town is regular, well built, and increasing, but 

 presents nothing so worthy of remark as the numerous 

 rows of elm-trees with which its public square and some 

 of the more private streets are ornamented. Of the 

 beauty of the American elm I have already spoken ; 

 but though it appears to thrive well here, I saw none 

 possessed of that rare beauty which has so often struck 

 me in single specimens, groups, or rows of these trees 

 in their native forests, or by the sides of streams, 

 where art had not yet interfered to alter the arrange- 

 ments of nature. 



A novelty which early arrested my attention at New- 

 haven was the chirping or whistling of the tree-toad, 

 Hyla versicolor^ which, from the noise one hears filling 

 the whole air as evening approaches, must live in great 

 numbers among the branches of the elm-trees. Of 

 toads possessing a peculiar prehensile apparatus resem- 

 bling claws, which enables them to cling to the under 

 side of smooth branches, which devour insects, and are 

 usually found upon trees, there are at least two species 

 in the United States — the northern tree-toad and the 

 squirrel tree-toad. The former is the only one generally 

 known in New England and New York. It is about 



