He Hears A Thousand Noises, Without Being Able To Discern From Whence Or From What Animal They Proceed, But Which Are, In Fact, The Discordant Notes Of Five Different Species Of Frogs!"

_Philadelphia, April 27th, 1794._

DEAR FRIEND,

Previous to my coming to this country, I recollect reading the foregoing passages, the first in a history of New England, published in London, in the year 1671; and the other in a similar production of a later date.

Prepared as I was to hear something extraordinary from these animals, I confess the first frog _concert_ I heard in America was so much beyond any thing I could conceive of the _powers_ of these _musicians_, that I was truly astonished. This _performance_ was _al fresco_, and took place on the night of the 18th instant, in a large _swamp_, where there were at least ten thousand _performers_; and I really believe not two _exactly_ in the same pitch, if the octave can possibly admit of so many divisions or shades of semitones. An hibernian musician, who, like myself, was present for the first time at this _concert_ of _antimusic_, exclaimed, "By Jasus but they stop out of tune to a _nicety!"_

I have been since informed by an _amateur_, who resided many years in this country, and made this species of _music_ his peculiar study, that on these occasions the _treble_ is performed by the tree-frogs, the smallest and most _beautiful_ species; they are always of the same colour as the bark of the tree they inhabit, and their note is not unlike the chirp of a cricket:

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