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Handbook of Nalure-Study 



THE TREE-FROG, OR TREE-TOAD 



Teacher's Story 



"Ere yet the earliest warbler wakes, of coming spring to tell. 

 From every marsh a chorus breaks, a choir invisible, 

 As if the blossoms underground, a breath of utterance had found." — Tabb. 



SSOCIATED with the first songs of robin and bluebird, 

 is the equally delightful chorus of the spring peepers, 

 yet how infrequently do most of us see a member of 

 this invisible choir! There are some creatures which 

 are the quintessence of the slang word "cute" which, 

 interpreted, means the pefection of Lilliputian pro- 

 portions, permeated with undaunted spirit. The 

 chickadee is one of these, and the tree-frog is another. 



I confess to a thrill of delight when the Picker- 

 ing's hyla lifts itself on its tiny front feet, twists 



its head knowingly, and turns on me the full 



gaze of its bronze-rimmed eyes. This is the 



tiniest froglet of them all, being little more than 



an inch long when fully grown; it wears the 



Greek cross in darker color upon its back, with 



some stripes across its long hind legs which join 



the pattern on the back when the frog is "shut 



up," as the boys say. 



The reason we see so little of tree-frogs, is 



because they are protected from discovery by 



their color. They have the chameleon power 



of changing color to match their background. 



The Pickering's hyla will effect this change in 



twenty minutes; in this species, the darker 



lines forming the cross change first, giving a 



m.ottled appearance which is at once protective. 



I have taken three of these peepers, all of them 



pale yellowish brown with gray markings, and 



have placed one upon a fern, one on dark soil 



and one on the purple bud of a flower. Within 



half an hour, each matched its surroundings so 



closely, that the casual eye would not detect 



them. The song of the Pickering's hyla is a 



resonant chirp, very stirring when heard nearby; 



it sounds somewhat like the note of a water bird. 



How such a small creature can make such a loud 



noise, is a mystery. The process, however, may 



be watched at night by the light of a lamp, as 



none of the tree-frogs seem to pay any atten- 

 tion to an artificial light; the thin' membrane 



beneath the throat swells out until it seems 



almost large enough to balloon the little chap off 



his perch. No wonder that, with such a sound- „. . , , . 



ing-sac. the note is stirring. There are several ^ pYckering'T'^da!''^^ 



species of tree-frogs that trill in the branches Photo by Gyrus Crosby. 



