Page 21 - St Giles Catesby booklet MC StG 20210723 e-flip_Neat

American green tree frog
Mark Catesby seems to have been intrigued by this "bright grass Green"
tree frog that does indeed inhabit trees. "They appear seldom in the Day",
he wrote, "but at Night are very active and noisy, leaping from Spray to
Spray, on the tallest Trees, catching Fire Flies and other Insects,
incessantly chirping chit chit chit chit." He may even have kept one of these
small frogs as a pet for he described holding one four yards (4m) away
from a reclining mirror on to which the frog leapt and stuck fast. He
noticed that in the wild they were usually to be found on the undersides
of leaves "to conceal themselves from their ... Enemies" such as birds and
snakes. They "stick" to leaves using the enlarged sticky pads at the ends
of their toes. Catesby's description of the pads was evocative: "they being
round, fleshy, and concave, somewhat like the Mouth of a Leech."
Catesby, perhaps having fun (one of his traits), drew the tree frog
seemingly eyeing a large spider, a green lynx spider (Peucetia viridans), that
is dangling on its silken thread above.
There are other frogs in Mark Catesby's magnificent book,
including the American bullfrog which rejoices today in the scientific
name Lithobates catesbeianus, in recognition of Mark Catesby. At least twice Mark Catesby, 1739. The natural history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama islands,
the size of the green tree frog, a bullfrog (which can measure up to 6in volume 2, plate 72.
(9cm) from snout to tail) fills an entire page of Catesby's Natural history of American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus)
Carolina, Florida and the Bahama islands. with pink lady's-slipper orchid (Cypripedium acaule)