2 
beauty set on one of the hills rising sharply fron the sinuous shore of the 
bay. 
i*-e institute was founded by the late Dr. Osv/aldo Cruz, who was noted 
ior nis fine work in lighting all cianiier of tropical disease. Its luembers 
nov/ devote themselves to iredical research of irjan;:i kinds, and there is a hospital 
attached to the institute to which travel daily iriany people of the poorer classes 
cxluicted jvitii liialaria, leprosy, elephantiasis and the other ailments which are 
tiie scourge of the tropics# 
t 
Night-collecting v/hich is the best method of -t 
frogs and 
all other small nocturnal creatures^ was something that i had alwaj^s longed to 
try, and a few days after my arrival in Rio, the opportunity "Dresented itself. 
kxt 8 o’clock one rainy evening -.ve started out in the old andrattlyiia^a^« 
belonging to the insti tute^ which had done honorable service for 16 years, so I 
Vvas told, over the precipitous roads of the mountains surrounding the city. Our 
destination was a florist’s garden in the . ittle suburb called Santa x.lexandrina, 
set high on the slope leading upward to the peak of Oorcovado where night^ly 
gleams the heroic statue of tlie Ciirist illuminated by brilliant flood-lamps. At 
tne end of a bumpy dirt road between higli thickets of bamboo, we came to a white 
wooden gate. we waited and teocked to get the attention of the leisurely 
little colored boy who finally unlocked it for us, 1 was conscious of a c.istant 
metallic drui'omirig sound, now” rising;, noy/ falling, which issued from the depths 
J 
of the dark and misty garden, and which was told vvas the call of the giant tree- 
toad , Hy la fabe r. 
Before we could trace the sound to its source, it v/as 
necessary to pay a formial call at the house of the cnmer of the warden, the 
florist, whose charming, tiny xclants grew on the rocks that bordered the stone 
path. The night -was rainy and frog voices were co.^ung from all around us thro .igh 
the darloiess. I recognized the whirring call of a toad, not unlike those of 
