A ROADSIDE NATURALIST. 17 



amiable manner possible. By the way, there is one 

 way of looking at a creature without alarming it, 

 and that is to look as you continue to pass along : 

 a dead stop will cause it to move on at once. The 

 brown owl, although it is more essentially a bird of 

 the woods than the white owl, swoops round and 

 about the roads. 



The numbers of creatures that cross roads at night 

 can hardly be imagined. Frogs and toads quit their 

 hiding-places in the moist stripes near the hedges, 

 and hop about in all directions. To the brown owl 

 a nice jumping frog is a great delicacy; he drops 

 down on him whenever he catches sight of him. 

 The difference between a toad and a frog our brown 

 owl knows far better than you do. The worst of it 

 is, he will pull poor froggy to pieces all alive, and 

 he is not at all particular on which part he begins 

 first. I have heard the frogs complaining most 

 bitterly about the cruelty of the operation. It may 

 not be a universally known fact that the frog has a 

 voice independently of his croaking, but it is a fact. 

 A most eloquent one it is, too, when he is completely 

 upset, and it can be heard for some distance. If you 

 wish to practise a harmless joke at his expense, some 

 B 



