Impressions 



monly heard in winter also, when it seems quite 

 in place. Theirs is an all-the-year-ronnd song, 

 but was of the heat, to-day, an intimate part 

 and parcel. 



Stepping aside hut a few paces, I reached the 

 brook with its overhanging willows, maples, 

 wild cherry and an endless tangle of grape and 

 green brier. Here there was, I think, a differ- 

 ence of twenty degrees in temperature. It was 

 like entering an ice-house and what a delight to 

 hear a tree-toad grumbling about the weather. 

 I have been told that it was asking for rain and 

 scolding because of too much of it; and again, 

 that whichever way the wind blows, it always 

 grumbles; but I accept none of these state- 

 ments. I believe it to be grunting its satisfac- 

 tion over its peculiar lot in life. Our common 

 hop-toad has been sagely commented upon and 

 been called a philosophical creature, but the 

 tree-toad, comfortably settled in a damp nook 

 of an old apple tree, has solved the problem of 

 existence without vexation. His, it is, to con- 

 template the busy toilers that surround him and 

 not wear out or rust out in so doing. There is 

 the turtle in the mud of the meadow and the fish 

 that dreamily floats where the cool spring water 



105 



