108 IN SPRING. 



did it wholly disappear. Noting so much, I then 

 moved slightly to attract the creature's attention. 

 Immediately it ceased fifing, but the sac re- 

 mained slightly diminished in size, As I was 

 again perfectly quiet, its confidence returned, and 

 the shrill monotonous " peep ! " was resumed, but 

 pitched in even a higher key, as though to make 

 good the loss of time my slight interference had 

 caused. 



When Peter Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, 

 was studying the natural history of New Jersey, 

 he was much struck with the noises made by 

 certain small frogs which he heard, and supposed 

 that he saw; but it would appear, from a re- 

 cent study of the subject by Prof. Garman, of 

 Cambridge, Mass, that Kalm attributed the 

 voices of one species to a very different and much 

 larger frog. The reasons given for this opinion 

 by Prof. Garman are conclusive ; that author re- 

 marks ; " Apparently the frog Kalm heard was 

 not the one he caught. The cry is that of Hyla 

 Pzckertngiz ; the frog taken was probably . . . 

 the leopard, frog." So far, Garman ; but I am 

 convinced my friend is mistaken, and that Kalm 

 heard the shrill peeping of the little Acris crept- 

 tans, which is extraordinarily abundant, while, in 

 the locality where Kalm was, Pickering's hyla is 

 comparatively rare. 



I lingered long by the resounding marsh so 



