12 SHARP EYES 



toads spend the winter, like other frogs, buried in the 

 mud at the bottom of the ponds and marshes ; but 

 this is now discredited by many observers, who have 

 disclosed them during the winter beneath logs, and 

 in other places far from the water. It is true that 

 on the first approach of spring weather they seek the 

 pools to deposit their eggs, and this supreme function 

 is the impulse of their universal song at this period. 



The Pickering frog is the champion climber of his 

 kind, even outvying the tree -toad, or Hyla. The shrill 

 voice from the bog is quite as likely to proceed from 

 some perch among the tall, withered rushes as from the 

 rippling water, while Dr. C. C. Abbott mentions having 

 found one of the agile peepers at the top of a tulip- 

 tree, sixty feet from the ground. 



