A GARDEN DIARY 185 



MAY 5, 1900 



events are more gratifying than to find 

 oneself taken more seriously by other people 

 than by oneself, and I am pleased therefore to 

 discover that our palpably artificial little pond 

 has been taken possession of by a colony of 

 frogs, which must have travelled some distance 

 to make its acquaintance, frog -haunted ponds 

 or even ditches being by no means abundant 

 on these dry hillsides of ours. 



I have never myself met more than one 

 species of frog in these islands. Professor Bell, 

 however, speaks of another, Rana Scotica, 

 which he held to be distinct, but the difference 

 seems to be mainly one of size. It is ex- 

 tremely difficult to persuade anyone who has 

 noticed the multitudes of frogs which swarm in 

 Ireland that they were only introduced there 

 artificially, and as lately as the beginning of last 

 century. Such, nevertheless, is the fact, and 

 the date of the event is, moreover, a tolerably 

 fixed one. It was a Dr. Gunthers, or Guithers, 



