SHOWERS OF FROGS 
ranges from the south of France to Japan by way of 
southern Europe and Asia Minor. Its northernmost 
haunt is the south of Sweden. The little frog is not more 
than two inches long, and indeed tree frogs as a rule 
are small. This particular species, though it lives in 
trees, descends to ponds to lay its eggs, from which 
emerge in due course tadpoles. One Hohenheim, who 
modestly styled himself Aureolus Theophrastus Bom- 
AUSTRALIAN GREEN TREE FROG. 
bastes Paracelsus, and is better known by the last of his 
four invented names, thought or more probably only said, 
that frogs exist in the firmament from which others 
arise, and are thrown down by the impact of tempest ; 
that they also produce seed in May which falls upon the 
ground and from which tree-frogs are produced. This 
is one of the oldest versions of the old ‘‘ shower ”’ theory 
of the birth, or at least migration, of frogs ; it is of course 
to be explained by the simultaneous hatching of in- 
numerable frogs which “wander at will o’er the 
meadows ”’ in search of suitable trees. So Résel von 
Rosenhof, a historian of the frogs of Germany in 1750, 
288 
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