THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



have seen the spark of life rekindle in them on the 

 hearth. 



With this added visual power, one would see the 

 wood frogs and the hylas in their winter beds but a 

 few inches beneath the moss and leaf-mould, one 

 here and one there, cold, inert, biding their time. I 

 dug a wood frog out one December and found him 

 not frozen, though the soil aroimd him was full of 

 frost; he was ahve but not frisky. A friend of mine 

 once found one in the woods sitting upon the snow 

 one day in early winter. She carried him home with 

 her, and he burrowed in the soil of her flower-pot 

 and came out all right in the spring. What brought 

 him out upon the snow in December one would 

 hke to know. 



One would see the tree-frogs in the cavities of old 

 trees, wrapped in their winter sleep — which is yet 

 not a sleep, but suspended animation. When the 

 day is warm, or the January thaw comes, I fancy the 

 little frog feels it and stirs in his bed. One would 

 see the warty toads squatted in the soil two or three 

 feet below the surface, in the same way. Probably 

 not till April will the spell which the winter has put 

 upon them be -broken. I have seen a toad go into 

 the ground in late fall. He Uterally elbows his way 

 into it, going down backwards. 



Beneath rocks or in cavities at the end of some 

 small hole in the ground, one would see a ball or 

 tangle of garter snakes, or black snakes, or copper- 



