APRIL, 1900, 
129 
the typical open-stand form, is evidently of "second growth." As 
the species is a slow grower, however, it may well be fifty years 
old. In the Jesiip collection in the American Musenm of Natural 
History, at New' York, there is a log specimen from the northern 
part of that state which is twelve inches inside the bark, and shows 
seventy-six rings. The largest tree of this species on record seems 
to be one at West Stockbridge, Mass., which, in 1877, had a cir- 
cumference, at four feet from the ground, of seven feet two inches, 
or twenty-seven inches diameter. 
Shade trees of several species on the West Side have had their 
trunks colored conspicuously green, during the fall and winter, 
by some alga, possibly a Pleurococcus. 
The year 1899, the vicinity of Milwaukee, was a seed year 
for a number of trees. Acer sacchariniim keys were very abund- 
ant on the shade trees along the city streets, and many seedlings 
sprouted on the lawns. The several species of oak all bore very 
abundantly. So did the hop hornbeam. Also the bass wood. 
A Ram of Frogs. By Ernest Bruncken. The sudden oc- 
currence of frogs in very great numbers, disappearing just as 
suddenly, has often been recorded, and led to the popular belief 
in a "rain of frogs." Such an appearance of frogs, due presum- 
ably to a migration, was noticed in the vicinity of Rush Lake, 
Winnebago County, in August, 1897. On the 25th of that month 
I noticed an unusual number of leopard frogs in the garden sur- 
rounding a farm house, about two miles from that lake, and not 
in the immediate vicinity of any large body of water. Upon in- 
quiry I was told 1)y the people living there that a few days before 
there had been "a hundred frogs wdiere there is one now." 
A "frog rain" is mentioned as occurring at Milwaukee in 
1836 by Buck in his "Pioneer History." Other old residents 
claim that this phenomenon occurred in 1839, and it is stated that 
at that time frogs were taken out of the cellars and basements in 
the then village of Mihvaukee "by the bushel basket full." 
On the Occurrence of the Evening: Grosbeak in Milwaukee 
in the Winter of 1899-1900. By W. J. Bennetts. The winter 
of 1899-1900 has been characterized at Milwaukee by the pres- 
ence, in considerable mmibers and after ten years' absence, of the 
evening grosbeak (Coccothraiisfes vespcrtina) . Their last occur- 
rence in this vicinity was in January and February, 1890, and 
previous to that in the same months of 1888, and in March and 
April of 1887. On each occasion they were reported also from 
the majority of states between the Dakotas and the x\tlantic, and 
