. Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets. Nature study. THE TREE-FROG, OR TREE-TOAD Teacher's Story "Ere yet the earliest warbler wakes, of coming spring to tell. From every marsh a chorus breaks, a choir invisible, As if the blossoms underground, a breath of utterance had ;—Tabb. SSOCIATED with the first songs of robin and bluebird, is the equally delightful chorus of the spring peepers, yet how infrequently do most of us see a member of this invisible choir! There are some creatures which are the quintessence of the slang
. Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets. Nature study. THE TREE-FROG, OR TREE-TOAD Teacher's Story "Ere yet the earliest warbler wakes, of coming spring to tell. From every marsh a chorus breaks, a choir invisible, As if the blossoms underground, a breath of utterance had ;—Tabb. SSOCIATED with the first songs of robin and bluebird, is the equally delightful chorus of the spring peepers, yet how infrequently do most of us see a member of this invisible choir! There are some creatures which are the quintessence of the slang word "cute" which, interpreted, means the pefection of Lilliputian pro- portions, permeated with undaunted spirit. The chickadee is one of these, and the tree-frog is another. I confess to a thrill of delight when the Picker- ing's hyla lifts itself on its tiny front feet, twists its head knowingly, and turns on me the full gaze of its bronze-rimmed eyes. This is the tiniest froglet of them all, being little more than an inch long when fully grown; it wears the Greek cross in darker color upon its back, with some stripes across its long hind legs which join the pattern on the back when the frog is "shut up," as the boys say. The reason we see so little of tree-frogs, is because they are protected from discovery by their color. They have the chameleon power of changing color to match their background. The Pickering's hyla will effect this change in twenty minutes; in this species, the darker lines forming the cross change first, giving a appearance which is at once protective. I have taken three of these peepers, all of them pale yellowish brown with gray markings, and have placed one upon a fern, one on dark soil and one on the purple bud of a flower. Within half an hour, each matched its surroundings so closely, that the casual eye would not detect them. The song of the Pickering's hyla is a resonant chirp, very stirring when heard nearby; it so
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