132 TREE FROG. 



yellowish brown colour. The tadpoles become 

 perfect Frogs, by the total decay of the tail, about 

 the beginning of August ; and soon begin to as- 

 cend the neighbouring trees, where they continue 

 to reside during the remainder of the warm sea- 

 son ; as do likewise the parent animals, after the 

 breeding season is past. During their residence 

 among the trees they are observed to be particularly 

 noisy on the approach of rain ; so that they may 

 be considered, in some measure, as a kind of living- 

 barometers ; more especially the males, which, if 

 kept in glasses, and supplied with proper food, 

 will afford an infallible presage of the changes of 

 weather. In the German Ephemerides Naturae 

 Curiosorum we meet with an account of one which 

 was kept in this manner for the space of seven 

 years. It does not appear that the natural resid- 

 ence of this frog in the waters, during the win- 

 ter, and in spring, was observed before the time 

 of Roesel ; and it is remarkable that Klein, in his 

 objections to the Linnasan arrangement of the 

 Amphibia, appears to imagine that the Tree Frog 

 never inhabits the water. 



