MEADOW SINGERS. 87 



match colors as a lady would in the purchasing of 

 dress material. He is most commonly arrayed in 

 warm gray. 



The figure of the tree toad is not as charming as 

 its voice or its color. He is covered with large and 

 small warty excrescences from top to toe, and there 

 is a prominent loose fold of skin across his yellow- 

 white breast. He is short and stumpy in head and 

 hmb, as well as broad-toed ; in fact, he is not aristo- 

 cratic looking hke his cousins Acris and Pickeringii. 

 But his voice possesses a most winning, pathetic 

 quality which I can only liken to the musical, bubbling 

 bleat of a miniature lamb ; there is something at- 

 tractive and soothing about it. This should not be 

 confused with the song of the common toad {Bvfo 

 Americanus), which can be closely imitated by 

 whistlina: the note C two octaves A 



° — jrf lib. 



Wr r-r-rrT 



^ 



^ 



above middle C and humming, 

 sotto voce, A in the second octave 

 below middle C, thus : 



The tone is sustained uni- 

 formly for about four seconds, 

 then an answer comes from across the pond a 

 musical third lower — A in the treble and E in 

 the bass. 



Later in the summer we hear the combined voices 

 of these singers in the hedges, by the roadside fence, 



