THE TREE-FROGS. 



15 



After another spell at the axe, (luring 



I began to make two cuts, one a 



inches above the other, and to split 



off the intervening portion, 



&> "^^ thus saving work, I found 



^ my right arm in good 



\ shape, but my left arm 



very tired, while I could not 



control the fingers of my left 



hand at all, but had to 



straighten them out one 



BRIGHT DOTS OF GOLDFINCHES. 



by one with the other hand, as 

 though they were attachments quite 

 apart from my own anatomy. A beau- 

 tiful blister was rising on the ball of the 

 second digit. 



Just as I was returning to work, a protu- 

 berance on the bark caught my eye. It seemed 

 to be a large cocoon of some unknown moth. 

 Placing my hand upon it, it moved quickly, 

 and I was astonished to find a yellow-breeched 

 tree-frog in my grasp. His back was exactl} r 

 the color of the bark, mottlings and all, and 

 it was only by chance I had caught sight of 

 him. lie was finely disguised, and protected 

 against his enemies by his invisible dress — far differ- 

 ent from the bright dots of goldfinches, whose gleam- 

 ing yellow coats I could detect in the thicket a long dis- 

 tance up the hill. This frog's immobility, while his 

 perch was being felled, was a good illustration of the 

 western phrase that describes a man who is stolid, 

 when excitement would be more in place, as "sitting 

 like a bump on a log." That was precisely the case 

 with this calm hyla — well surnamcd versicolor — whose 

 portrait appears in the frontispiece, beside that of his 

 neighbor the wood-froir. 



