WOODLAND PATHS 



striking and in the mellow glow of an 

 obscure twilight I could see the surface 

 stippled with pearly light. Then through 

 it all came a new song ; the first soloist of 

 the night, the first of his kind of the season, 

 thrilling a long, dreamy, heart-stirring 

 cadenza of happiness, the love call of the 

 swamp tree frog. 



As the pattering music of the April 

 showers on the waiting land is a rune of 

 the ancient earth, so the love song of the 

 swamp tree frog dreams down the years 

 to us all the way from the carboniferous 

 age. When the coal measures were for- 

 ests of tree ferns, and the first men pad- 

 dled through steaming shallows in their 

 shade, the swamp tree frog was a tree 

 frog indeed, and sang his soothing song 

 from their branches. Since then he has 

 degenerated and has lost most of the ad- 

 hesive power of the tiny disks on fingers 

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