146 PEPACTON 



to fail to do so by night. Last summer one was 

 discovered sitting against a window upon a climbing 

 rosebush. The house had not been occupied for 

 some days, and when the curtain was drawn the 

 toad was discovered and closely observed. His 

 light gray color harmonized perfectly with the un- 

 painted woodwork of the house. During the day 

 he never moved a muscle, but next morning he was 

 gone. A friend of mine caught one, and placed it 

 under a tumbler on his table at night, leaving the 

 edge of the glass raised about the eighth of an inch 

 to admit the air. During the night he was awak- 

 ened by a strange sound in his room. Pat, pat, 

 pat went some object, now here, now there, among 

 the furniture, or upon the walls and doors. On 

 investigating the matter, he found that by some 

 means his tree-toad had escaped from under the 

 glass, and was leaping in a very lively manner about 

 the room, producing the sound he had heard when 

 it alighted upon the door, or wall, or other perpen- 

 dicular surface. 



The home of the tree-toad, I am convinced, is 

 usually a hollow limb or other cavity in the tree; 

 here he makes his headquarters, and passes most of 

 the day. For two years a pair of them frequented 

 an old apple-tree near my house, occasionally sitting 

 at the mouth of a cavity that led into a large branch, 

 but usually their voices were heard from within the 

 cavity itself. On one occasion, while walking in 

 the woods in early May, I heard the voice of a tree- 

 toad but a few yards from me. Cautiously follow- 



