CHAPTER X 



A CHAPTER OF THINGS TO HEAR THIS SPRING 

 I 



HE frogs ! You can have no spring until you ) -; 

 hear the frogs. The first shrill notes, heard - v 

 before the ice is fairly out of the marshes, -- . 

 will be the waking call of the hylas, the tiny tree- 

 frogs that later on in the summer you will find in thej ' 

 woods. Then, as the spring advances and this sil-v 

 j very sleigh-bell jingle tinkles faster, other voices , 

 I will join in the soft croak of the spotted leopard /*> 

 frogs, the still softer melancholy quaver of the com ~l.jT 

 -:' mon toad, and away down at the end of the scale the jS 

 deep, solemn bass of the great bullfrog saying, " Go C_^ 

 'J round ! Better go round ! " Hfe 



II 



"* You must hear, besides the first spring notes of the *C^> 

 >j bluebird and the robin, four bird songs this spring. T?^ 

 " First (1) the song of the wood thrush or the hermit,/ ^ 

 ,S thrush, whichever one lives in your neighborhood. , \ 

 > No words can describe the purity, the peacefulness, '; 

 /the spiritual quality of the wood thrush's simple J{ > 

 " Come to me." It is the voice of the ^ 

 tender twilight, the voice of the tran- N 



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