WAYS OF NATURE 



frogs and toads are all in their hibernaculums in the 

 ground. 



I saw it stated the other day, in a paper read before 

 some scientific body, that the wood frogs retreat two 

 feet into the ground beyond the reach of frost. In 

 two instances I have found the wood frog in Decem- 

 ber with a covering of less than two inches of leaves 

 and moss. It had buried itself in the soil and leaf 

 mould only to the depth of the thickness of its own 

 body, and for covering had only the ordinary coat 

 of dry leaves and pine needles to be found in the 

 wood. It was evidently counting upon the snow for 

 its main protection. In one case I marked the spot, 

 and returned there in early spring to see how the 

 frog had wintered. I found it all right. Evidently it 

 had some charm against the cold, for while the earth 

 around and beneath it was yet frozen solid, there 

 was no frost in the frog. It was not a brisk frog, but 

 it was well, and when I came again on a warm day a 

 week later, it had come forth from its retreat and 

 was headed for the near-by marsh, where in April, 

 with its kith and kin, it helped make the air vocal 

 with its love-calls. A friend of mine, one mild day 

 late in December, found a wood frog sitting upon the 

 snow in the woods. She took it home and put it to 

 bed in the soil of one of her flower-pots in the cellar. 

 In the spring she found it in good condition, and in 

 April carried it back to the woods. The hyla, or little 

 piping frog, passes the winter in the ground like 

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