76. HAUNTS AND HOBBIES 



activity. The frogs also have awoke from their long 

 hot -weather slumber, and have emerged from their 

 hiding-places in the mud. Of this fact at night I 

 had unpleasant evidence. Early in the evening their 

 croaking commenced. As darkness came on it grew 

 louder ; by bedtime it was overpowering. I do not 

 know that it is then in reality louder, but it seems so. 

 Interfering with sleep, one is more conscious of it. 

 The croaking is so loud, so incessant, it so fills the 

 air in every direction, that one fancies that the frogs 

 which utter it must be present in thousands. Observa- 

 tion shows that this is quite a delusion. The frogs 

 are really but very few. I do not suppose that those 

 whose voices now so disturb me number more than 

 half a dozen. 



The Indian frogs, I ma}- here mention, sometimes 

 attain enormous dimensions, quite equal to those of a 

 young duck. At another station I kept a tealery. 

 When visiting it one morning, I noticed what I 

 thought was one of the teal huddled up in the drain 

 that carried off the surplus water from the tank. I 

 went near to see if it was alive and to discover how it 

 had got out, and then I perceived that what I had sup- 

 posed to be a teal was only an immense frog. It was 

 quite as large as the largest of the teal, larger, indeed, 

 than many of them. 



But, besides the frogs, we have at night since the 

 rains commenced other musicians. The chief of these 

 are the "jheengoos," a variety of cricket. Three or 

 four of them have established themselves on the path 

 just before the verandah which faces the river. There, 



