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THE TREE-TOAD

We can boast a greater assortment of toads and frogs in this country than can any other land. What a chorus goes up from our ponds and marshes in spring! The like of it cannot be heard anywhere else under the sun. In Europe it would certainly have made an impression upon the literature. An attentive ear will detect first one variety, then another, each occupying the stage from three or four days to a week. The latter part of April, when the little peeping frogs are in full chorus, one comes upon places, in his drives or walks late in the day, where the air fairly palpitates with sound; from every little marshy hollow and spring run there rises an impenetrable maze or cloud of shrill musical voices. After the peepers, the next frog to appear is the clucking frog, a rather small, dark-brown frog, with a harsh, clucking note, which later in the season becomes the well-known brown wood-frog. Their chorus is heard for a few days only, while their spawn is being deposited. In less than a week it ceases, and I never hear them again till the next April. As the weather gets warmer, the toads take to the water, and set up that long-drawn musical tr-r-r- r-r-r-r-ing note. The voice of the bullfrog, who calls, according to the boys, “jug o’ rum,” “jug o’ rum,” “pull the plug,” “pull the plug,” is not heard much before June. The peepers, the clucking frog, and the bullfrog are the only ones that call in chorus. The most interesting and the most shy and withdrawn of all our frogs and toads is the tree-toad,–the creature that, from the old apple or cherry tree, or red cedar, announces the approach of rain, and baffles your every effort to see or discover it. It has not (as some people imagine) exactly the power of the chameleon to render itself invisible by assuming the color of the object it perches upon, but it sits very close and still, and its mottled back, of different shades of ashen gray, blends it perfectly with the bark of nearly every tree. The only change in its color I have ever noticed is that it is lighter on a light-colored tree, like the beech or soft maple, and darker on the apple, or cedar, or pine. Then it is usually hidden in some cavity or hollow of the tree, when its voice appears to come from the outside.

Most of my observations upon the habits of this creature run counter to the authorities I have been able to consult on the subject.

In the first place, the tree-toad is nocturnal in its habits, like the common toad. By day it remains motionless and concealed; by night it is as alert and active as an owl, feeding and moving about from tree to tree. I have never known one to change its position by day, and never knew one to fail to do so by night. Last summer one was discovered sitting against a window upon a climbing rosebush. The house had not been occupied for some days, and when the curtain was drawn the toad was discovered and closely observed. His light gray color harmonized perfectly with the unpainted woodwork of the house. During the day he never moved a muscle, but next morning he was gone. A friend of mine caught one, and placed it under a tumbler on his table at night, leaving the edge of the glass raised about the eighth of an inch to admit the air. During the night he was awakened by a strange sound in his room. Pat, pat, pat went some object, now here, now there, among the furniture, or upon the walls and doors. On investigating the matter, he found that by some means his tree-toad had escaped from under the glass, and was leaping in a very lively manner about the room, producing the sound he had heard when it alighted upon the door, or wall, or other perpendicular surface.