Night Noises 185 



trunks. Intermediate sizes run the whole 

 range of greens, grays, and gray-browns. 

 Clinging flat against the trunk, you can hardly 

 distinguish a toad from a blur of lichens. 

 The creatures hop up or down, or back or 

 forth, in the most astonishing fashion. They 

 can get over ground as well as the common 

 toads, but are much more at home in the trees. 

 They live upon ants, moths, midges, and 

 young slugs, crawling upon the slenderest 

 twigs to get them, even resting contentedly 

 upon the under side of a fluttering leaf itself. 

 The peeping is not continuous, but very oft 

 repeated. It rises crescendo at the end, and 

 there is a delicate little accenting cluck be- 

 tween. If they began to peep in daylight, or 

 the crying lasted until dawn, Joe knew he 

 might look for rain. Thus they opposed the 

 whip-po'-will, which also came in April, but 

 whose call, even in the face of a thunder-cloud, 

 is a sure presage of no rain that night. 



Tree frogs and whip-po'-wills sang on 

 through May and June, often so loud you 

 could scarcely hear your ears for them, but in 

 Joe's mind May nights belonged to the mock- 

 ing-birds — especially nights of the full moon. 

 Then he often lay awake all night long, en- 

 tranced by their night chorus, the richest of all 

 the year. Three mockers nested in the gar- 

 den — one in the arbor matted over with 



