52 The Leopard-frog or Meadow-frog, Rana pipiens (Schreber). 



LIFE-HISTORY OF THE LEOPARD-FROG OR MEADOW-FROG. 



This is our most abundant and best-known frog. It is widespread 

 and is common in its distribution. As the season advances it presents 

 several color variations which need no description here. In fact, not 

 many who go afield could mistake it, unless it be to confuse it with the 

 pickerel-frog. The latter has, on the posterior underparts, orange or 

 orange-yellow, which the leopard-frog lacks. The pickerel-frog has 

 a more regular arrangement of the spots on the back and always 

 has a distinctive brown coloring, while the meadow-frog is usually 

 green (though it may at times appear brownish). In the early spring, 

 until May, we find them in the water of the swampy marshlands, 

 upland back-waters, overflows, and ponds. By the middle of May 

 they begin to be found a short distance from the water. In early 

 summer they leave the vicinity of the water and journey about over 

 marshland, or leave the lowlands entirely and ascend the hills through 

 the grassy woodlands, or through hay or grain fields of our cultivated 

 districts. One of my most vivid recollections as a boy was following 

 the mower in haying- time to collect the meadow-frogs which leaped out 

 of the way or got caught in the knives. In midsummer and early fall they 

 may still be found feeding away from the water. But with the oncoming 

 of the distinctly autumnal temperatures, they return to the water to 

 spend the winter. 



THE FIRST APPEARANCE. 



Iii the early spring, when the maple-sugar camps are beginning to 

 finish their work, when the streams are freeing themselves of ice and 

 are overflowing the lowlands and swamps, the first meadow-frogs begin to 

 appear in the dark settings of our marshes. They come down the 

 ravines of our hills to the lowland marshes or emerge from the mud of 

 the swamp itself, or from beneath stones in our streams. Along some 

 of our watercourses in early spring, particularly where the west banks 

 have good sun exposures, one frightens a succession of them as he pro- 

 ceeds along the banks. In fact, from the countless low croakings in 

 the wide marshes before vegetation has started, one wonders whence such 

 a frog population came. The average date of awakening is March 28, 

 two days after the peeper and three days before the outcoming of the 

 wood-frog. The first records from 1900 to 1912 follow: 



