THE SPRING PEEPERS 



II 



Every one who lives in the rural districts should 

 know these two musical messengers of the spring, and 

 with the help of the portraits I have given they 

 may be easily indentified. Note the 

 diminutive size, exactly given in 

 the illustration, neither species 

 being more than one inch, or at 

 most one and a half inches, 

 long in sitting posture 

 "crickets" indeed ! Note 

 also the peculiar 

 disk-shaped pads 



at the tips of the toes 

 of the Pickering, espe- 

 cially of the front feet, a. 

 peculiarity which distinguishes 

 this genus of frogs (Hylodes) and 

 that of the Hyla, or common tree- 

 toad, in which latter both pairs of 

 feet are equally equipped, a character- 

 istic which to the naturalist tells much 

 of the habits of his specimens, for it 

 means that any frog so provided is built 

 for climbing, and that most of its life 

 is spent among bushes and trees. It 

 has long been believed that the tree- 



