On The Borders Of Suwannee Lake

The regular respiratory pulsation of its white throat and an occasional twitching of a hind leg as a gnat crawled over it seemed to be the extent of the alligator frog’s movements while I was near. How it attained its perch, three feet above the ground, on its daily ascents, is something I fain would have learned. The sides of the cypress knee were nearly vertical, and the shrub stems near the top must have been as much of a hindrance as help in the ascent. Probably the frog cleared the whole distance with one mighty thrust of its stout legs, for a gradual scramble up the sides of the knee would be scarcely within the powers of a Rana. Another individual, discovered in a hollow stump, had no difficulty in clearing the rim, twenty inches above, at a single leap. Perches of this sort keep the frog fairly well out of the range of such terrestrial enemies as hogs, turtles, and snakes, and also screen it from such feathered foes as red-shouldered hawks and barred owls. When disturbed from one of these perches by a human intruder, it plunges into the lake and disappears.

If the alligator frog, besides having regard for its primal needs of food and safety, were responsive to agreeable sights and sounds, it would have additional reasons for taking up its abode on the borders of Suwannee Lake, one of the prettiest bodies of water in the Southeasten states. A morning in early May reveals this spot at its loveliest. The narrow waters lie beneath a bright blue sky, with fleecy patches of dazzling white cloud drifting lazily across it from the direction of the distant Atlantic. On either side the close ranks of tupelo, black gum, and cypress, with foliage then at its greenest, spread a grateful shade over the edges of the lake as well as upon the damp black earth of the adjoining creek swamp. The birds of this leafy tangle are happy and vocal, and a pleasant succession of their notes falls upon the ears of the understanding listener—the liquid chant of the prothonotary warbler, the merry roundelay of the Carolina wren, the buzzing trill of the parula warbler, the vociferations of the crested flycatcher, an occasional "speel-yup" from its lesser cousin, the Acadian flycatcher, the querulous "sham-shack" of the redbellied woodpecker, and now and then the clarion cry of the lordly pileated woodpecker.

A catbird, lingering late on its migration, sings a few low phrases from the shrubbery near the shore, and a fastmoving shadow on the lake announces a silent turkey buzzard sailing overhead. Fleets of "mellow bugs" or whirligig beetles, thousands strong, disport themselves on the coffee-colored waters, and among them a flotsam of countless fallen tupelo blossoms drifts before the breeze. Swirling mudfish constantly break the surface. The biggest alligator of the half a dozen present makes a lazy tour of the lake and finally crawls partly out on its favorite log.