The Writings of John Burroughs — Volume 05: PepactonBurroughs, John
History
The Writings of John Burroughs — Volume 05: Pepacton
Burroughs, John
Natural history -- Outdoor books
The little peeping frogs lead a sort of arboreal life, too, a part
of the season, but they are quite different from the true tree-
toads above described. They appear to leave the marshes in May,
and to take to the woods or bushes. I have never seen them on
trees, but upon low shrubs. They do not seem to be climbers, but
perchers. I caught one in May, in some low bushes a few rods from
the swamp. It perched upon the small twigs like a bird, and would
leap about among them, sure of its hold every time. I was first
attracted by its piping. I brought it home, and it piped for one
twilight in a bush in my yard and then was gone. I do not think
they pipe much after leaving the water. I have found them early in
April upon the ground in the woods, and again late in the fall.
In November, 1879, the warm, moist weather brought them out in
numbers. They were hopping about everywhere upon the fallen leaves.
Within a small space I captured six. Some of them were the hue of
the tan-colored leaves, probably Pickering's hyla, and some were
darker, according to the locality. Of course they do not go to the
marshes to winter, else they would not wait so late in the season.
I examined the ponds and marshes, and found bullfrogs buried in the
mud, but no peepers.
THE SPRING BIRDS
We never know the precise time the birds leave us in the fall: they
do not go suddenly; their departure is like that of an army of
occupation in no hurry to be off; they keep going and going, and we
hardly know when the last straggler is gone. Not so their return
in the spring: then it is like an army of invasion, and we know the
very day when the first scouts appear. It is a memorable event.
Indeed, it is always a surprise to me, and one of the compensations
of our abrupt and changeable climate, this suddenness with which
the birds come in spring,--in fact, with which spring itself comes,
alighting, maybe, to tarry only a day or two, but real and genuine,
for all that. When March arrives, we do not know what a day may
bring forth. It is like turning over a leaf, a new chapter of
startling incidents lying just on the other side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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