THE EDGE OF NIGHT 69 



is always a source of fresh amazement, the way 

 this largest of our hylas, on the moss-marked 

 rind of an old tree, can utterly blot himself out 

 before your staring eyes. 



The common toads and all the frogs have 

 enemies enough, and it would seem from the 

 comparative scarcity of the tree-toads that they 

 must have enemies, too, but I do not know who 

 they are. The scarcity of the tree-toads is some- 

 thing of a puzzle, and all the more to me, that, 

 to my certain knowledge, this toad has lived in 

 the old Baldwin tree, now, for five years. Per- 

 haps he has been several, and not one ; for who 

 can tell one tree-toad from another ? Nobody ; 

 and for that reason I made, some time ago, a 

 simple experiment, in order to see how long a 

 tree-toad might live, unprotected, in his own 

 natural environment. 



Upon moving into this house, about seven 

 years ago, we found a tree-toad living in the big 

 hickory by the porch. For the next three springs 

 he reappeared, and all summer long we would 

 find him, now on the tree, now on the porch, 

 often on the railing and backed tight up against 

 a post. Was he one or many ? we asked. Then 



