228 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
be dry and rustle under your feet, the peculiar 
dry note wurrk wurr~k wur rrk wurk , of the 
wood-frog is heard faintly by ears on the alert, 
borne up from some unseen pool in a woodland 
hollow which is open to the influences of the 
sun. It is a singular sound for awakening na¬ 
ture to make, associated with the first warmer 
days when you sit in some sheltered place in 
the woods amid the dried leaves. How moder¬ 
ate on her first awakening, how little demon¬ 
strative ! You may sit half an hour before you 
will hear another. You doubt if the season 
will be long enough for such oriental and luxu¬ 
rious slowness. But they get on nevertheless, 
and by to-morrow or in a day or two they croak 
louder and more frequently. Can you be sure 
that you have heard the very first wood-frog in 
the township croak ? Ah, how weather-wise 
must he be! There is no guessing at the 
weather with him. He makes the weather in 
his degree, he encourages it to be mild. The 
weather, what is it but the temperament of the 
earth ? and he is wholly of the earth, sensitive 
as its skin in which he lives, and of which he is 
a part. His life relaxes with the thawing 
ground. He pitches and tunes his voice to 
chord with the rustling leaves which the March 
wind has dried. Long before the frost is quite 
out he feels the influence of the spring rains 
