A Frog! A Frog!

A medium-sized frog has taken up residence in my little tub garden. She hangs on to the edge of the tub with her hands, like a swimmer holding on to the edge of the pool. It's difficult to describe her color—a sort of greeny-bronze, depending on how the sun is shining and what parts of her are above water. Her eyes are big and they stick out of her head. Nevertheless, she looks remarkably relaxed, and the two Shubunkins, Alpha and Omega, don't seem to mind her.

A frog in a pond, in the middle of summer, or a honeybee in the lavender, or a bat at sunset--—what is so amazing about that? When my field zoology professor, not so terribly long ago, said that we were the last generation to see animals in the wild, I thought he was crazy. The world in those days was overrun with bees that we swatted, frogs that kids hunted, bats that we hated. Who could imagine their demise?

And here I am now, that selfsame biology major, taking note of the fact that in this entire summer, in my not inconsiderable plantings of lavender and melissa and chamomile, not a single honeybee has buzzed. Taking note of the fact that I did one evening in June see a bat, but none since. And rejoicing that a frog, a seemingly healthy frog with no extra limbs or obvious deformities, has come to stay in my pond.

My field zoology prof was a prophet, or nearly so, after all. What can we do, in a reasonable, realistic, practical way, to prove him wrong?