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THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 





 '. 



to see how long a tree-toad might live, unprotected, 

 in his own natural environment. 



Upon moving into this house, about nine years 

 , ago, we found a tree-toad living in the big hickory 

 by the porch. For the next three springs he reap- 

 >peared, and all summer long we would find him, now 

 on the tree, now on the porch, often on the railing 

 / and backed tight up against a post. Was he one or 

 ^many ? we asked. Then we marked him ; and for the 

 ^ next four years we knew that he was himself alone. 

 ^ How many more years he might have lived in the 

 hickory for us all to pet, I should like to know ; but 

 .'/ last summer, to our great sorrow, the gypsy moth 

 'killers, poking in the hole, hit our little friend and 

 : left him dead. 



Si It was very wonderful to me, the instinct for 

 |*home: the love for home, I should like to call it 

 I that this humble little creature showed. Now, a toad 

 /is an amphibian to the zoologist; an ugly gnome 

 I with a jeweled eye, to the poet; but to the naturalist, 

 ' the lover of life for its own sake, who lives next 

 ? door to his toad, who feeds him a fly or a fat grub 

 f now and then, who tickles him to sleep with a rose 

 v leaf, who waits as thirstily as the hilltop for him 

 call the summer rain, who knows his going to 

 'sleep for the winter, his waking up for the spring 

 to such a one, I say, a tree-toad means more 

 than the jeweled eye and the strange amphibious 

 habits. 



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