The swimmer came along slowly, rhythmically, a perfect example of the stylish breaststroke, and not a ripple, it seemed, on the water of the harbour. Diners enjoying their filet de perche could look down on the swimmer, who soon came to rest on a sort of tailboard to a small craft. The swimmer was a frog. Soon there came along a duck and a drake. They did not see the frog, who quietly slipped into the water and under the boat. A bit of sound was heard from the birds as they swam around and about the various craft, but it's unlikely they got their frog.
Which brought to mind one of the daftest or most amusing, as you may see it, of all letters to the editor. For a suggestion in the magazine The Countryman a long time ago, that frogs could not utter anything other than a croak, brought a frenzy of correspondence. One man put it well when he said that a frog's scream is comparable to the sound you can make when you blow hard on a blade of grass held between your thumbs. Small boys like the screech that comes. More than one person, from memory, claimed that the frog only uttered when being swallowed down the gullet of a duck or whatever, and that that was purely the sound of air being expelled, not consciously made.
But letter after letter came in to say that the writer had heard a frog screech or scream when attacked by a cat, another by a rat. There were several who had heard the scream of a frog attacked by a grass snake. One, even, when merely faced by a snake. Then a crow was the torturer, and even that smallest of mammals, a shrew attacked and drew a screech. Much ado about nothing, you may say, but even a summary of the letters, published in a Pan book some years ago, The Countryman Wild Life Book, took up quite a few pages. It was edited by Bruce Campbell; seems to be out of print.
Irish frogs have an unmistakably piercing scream to judge by one found at the bottom of a cattle grid here in Meath. A mouse had it by one leg and the frog could be heard from yards away. Both were scooped out and sent on their very separate ways.