POND MUSIC 



Two days ago we might have offered a reward for 

 a single frog and, unless some expert had taken up the 

 quest, kept the money in our pocket. They were 

 stowed away beyond a suspicion of their whereabouts. 

 By diligent groping in the soft mud under the steep 

 side of the pond we might have brought up a fat and 

 unresistant green-and-yellow monster, for one of the 

 enigmas of the frog is that, although he stays under 

 water with difficulty in the summer, he often hibernates 

 in the mud. Or, by scraping many an acre of dead 

 leaves and splitting many a likely rotten log, we might 

 have found a frog or so of a dryer taste in winter 

 retreats. But never a frog should we have met in a 

 long day's ramble in those districts where they are 

 wont to hop out from under the feet as one goes 

 looking for sun-dew or musk-orchid. 



Yet to-day the prevailing note is frog. One was 

 found under a tall drain-pipe that had been lifted to 

 reveal the growth of the rhubarb. How it got there 

 was a mystery as unsolvable as King George's apple 

 in the dumpling, and a further mystery was how it 

 would have joined the spring revels of the frogs if we 

 had not happened there to open the door of its bed- 

 chamber. Another was seen hopping with immense 

 38 



