254 EITEKBY 



be justified in jumping to a conclusion not flattering 

 to your milkman, but if you find angle- worms in the 

 barrel of rain-water after a shower, you are not to 

 conclude that therefore they rained down, as many 

 people think they do. 



Or if after a shower in summer you find the ground 

 swarming with little toads, you are not to infer that 

 the shower brought them down. I have frequently 

 seen large numbers of little toads hopping about af- 

 ter a shower, but only in particular localities. Upon 

 a small, gravelly hill in the highway along which I 

 was in the habit of walking, I have seen them sev- 

 eral seasons, but in no other place upon that road. 

 Just why they come out on such occasions is a ques- 

 tion; probably to get their jackets wet. There was 

 a pond and marshy ground not far off where they 

 doubtless hatched. Because the frogs are heard in 

 the marshes in spring as soon as the ice and snow 

 are gone, it is a popular belief that they hibernate 

 in these places. But the two earliest frogs, I am 

 convinced, pass the winter in the ground in the 

 woods, and seek the marshes as soon as the frost and 

 ice are gone. I have heard the hyla pipe in a fee- 

 ble tentative manner in localities where the ground 

 was free from frost, while the marshes near by were 

 yet covered with solid ice ; and in spring I have dug 

 out another species from beneath the leaf mould in 

 the woods. Both these species are properly land- 

 frogs, and only take to the water to breed, returning 

 again to the woods later in the season. The same 

 is true of the tree-frog, which passes the winter in 



