ry one. Each spring I entrust some casual little boy with a pail; he
brings it back full of frog-spawn and receives sixpence. I speculate
sometimes with complacency how many thousand of healthy and industrious
batrachians I have reared and turned out for the benefit of my
neighbours. Enough perhaps, but certainly no more, remain to serve
me--that I know because the slugs give very little trouble in spite of
the most favourable circumstances. You can always find frogs in my
garden by looking for them, but of the thousands hatched every year,
ninety-nine per cent. must vanish. Do blackbirds and thrushes eat young
frogs? They are strangely abundant with me. But those who cultivate
tadpoles must look over the breeding-pond from time to time. My whole
batch was devoured one year by "devils"--the larvae of _Dytiscus
marginalis_, the Plunger beetle. I have benefited, or at least have
puzzled my neighbours also by introducing to them another sort of frog.
Three years ago I bought twenty-five Hyloe, the pretty green tree
species, to dwell in my Odontoglossum house and exterminate the
insects. Every ventilator there is covered with perforated zinc--to
prevent insects getting in; but, by some means approaching the
miraculous, all my Hyloe contrived to escape. Several were caught in
the garden and put back, but again they found their way to the open-air;
and presently my fruit-trees became vocal. So far, this is the
experience of every one, probably, who has tried to keep green frogs.
But in my case they survived two winters--one which everybody
recollects, the most severe of this generation. My frogs sang merrily
through the summer; but all in a neighbour's garden. I am not acquainted
with that family; but it is cheering to think how much innocent
diversion I have provided for its members.

Pleasant also it is, by the way, to vindicate the character of green
frogs. I never heard them spoken of by gardeners but with contempt. Not
only do they persist in escaping; more than that, they decline to catch
insects, sitting motionless all day long--pretty, if you like, but
useless. The fact is, that all these creatures are nocturnal of habit.
Very few men visit their orchid-houses at night, as I do constantly.
They would see the frogs active enough then, creeping with wondrous
dexterity among the leaves, and springing like a green flash upon their
prey. Naturally, therefore, they do not catch thrips or mealy-bug or
aphis; these are too sm