and nights,
the marshes about me were again vocal with the many voices of the
hyla, the "peepers" of early spring. That is the fact. Now, what is
the interpretation? With me the peepers become silent in early May,
and, I suppose, leave the marshes for their life in the woods. Did the
drouth destroy all their eggs and young, and did they know this and so
come back to try again? How else shall one explain their second
appearance in the marshes? But how did they know of the destruction
of their young, and how can we account for their concerted action?
These are difficulties not easily overcome. A more rational
explanation to me is this, namely, that the extreme dryness of the
woods--nearly two months without rain--drove the little frogs to seek
for moisture in their spring haunts, where in places a little water
would be pretty certain to be found. Here they were holding out,
probably hibernating again, as such creatures do in the tropics during
the dry season, when the rains came, and here again they sent up their
spring chorus of voices, and, for aught I know, once more deposited
their eggs. This to me is much more like the ways of Nature with her
creatures than is the theory of the frogs' voluntary return to the
swamps and pools to start the season over again.

The birds at least show little or no wit when a new problem is
presented to them. They have no power of initiative. Instinct runs in
a groove, and cannot take a step outside of it. One May day we started
a meadowlark from her nest. There were three just hatched young in the
nest, and one egg lying on the ground about two inches from the nest.
I suspected that this egg was infertile and that the bird had had the
sense to throw it out, but on examination it was found to contain a
nearly grown bird. The inference was, then, that the egg had been
accidentally carried out of the nest some time when the sitting bird
had taken a sudden flight, and that she did not have the sense to
roll or carry it back to its place.

There is another view of the case which no doubt the sentimental
"School of Nature Study" would eagerly adopt: A very severe drouth
reigned throughout the land; food was probably scarce, and was
becoming scarcer; the bird foresaw her inability to care for four
young ones, and so reduced the possible number by ejecting one of the
eggs from the nest. This sounds pretty and plausible, and so credits
the bird with the wisdom that the public is so fond of bel