82 Wilderness Ways. 



disappear like a wink, and not show himself again. 

 Another would follow the fly in a wild kangaroo 

 dance over the lily pads, going round and round the 

 canoe as if bewitched, and would do his best to climb 

 in after the bit of color when I pulled it up slowly 

 over the bark. He afforded me so much good fun 

 that I could not eat him ; though I always stopped to 

 give him another dance, whenever I went fishing for 

 other frogs just like him. Further along shore lived 

 another, a perfect savage, so wild that I could never 

 catch him, which strangled or drowned two big frogs 

 in a week, to my certain knowledge. And then, one 

 night when I was trying to find my canoe which I 

 had lost in the darkness, I came upon a frog migra- 

 tion, dozens and dozens of them, all hopping briskly 

 in the same direction. They had left the stream, 

 driven by some strange instinct, just like rats or 

 squirrels, and were going through the woods to the 

 unknown destination that beckoned them so strongly 

 that they could not but follow. 



The most curious and interesting bit of their 

 strange life came out at night, when they were fas- 

 cinated by my light. I used sometimes to set a 

 candle on a piece of board for a float, and place it in 

 the water close to shore, where the ripples would set 

 it dancing gently. Then I would place a little screen 



