NATURE'S CALENDAR 



May 12 sounds like whistling, and at the same 



■ time pronouncing deep in the throat 



bu-rr-r-r-r-. . . . The eggs are laid in long 

 strings, or ropes, which are nearly always 

 tangled and wound round the water- 

 plants, or sticks on the bottom of the 

 pond near the shore. If the eggs have 

 been freshly laid, or if the water is clear, 

 the egg-ropes will look like glass tubes 

 containing a string of jet-black beads. . . . 

 It takes only a short time for the eggs to 

 hatch. In warm weather two or three 

 days are usually sufficient." 



Much the same remarks apply to the 

 time and place of the breeding of the 

 tree-frog {Hyla versicolor), which occurs 

 in similar circumstances. Its eggs, how- 

 ever, are laid singly or in small clusters, 

 attached to blades of grass or other sup- 

 ports in shallow water near shore. They 

 hatch in about forty-eight hours, but their 

 subsequent development is slow, it being 

 some three weeks before the hind legs 

 are well developed, and another three 

 weeks before the fore-legs are free and 

 completely formed. 



The rare and curious spade-foot toad 

 may also sometimes be found this month. 

 It is a species well distributed, but local 

 and rarely seen, as it burrows deeply, and 

 sometimes intervals of several years 

 elapse when it will not appear nor be 

 heard in a locality. " The eggs are laid 

 at any time from April to June in bunches 

 from one to three inches in diameter, 



