AMPHIBIANS 



Fig. 303. — Cricket frog, Acris gryllus. 



body is usually less than an inch long, brown or grayish colored 

 above, with a bright green stripe running down the middle of 

 the back (Fig. 303). There are dark brown obliquely point- 

 ed spots on either side of the green stripe and dark brown 

 cross bands on the hind legs. Its throat and under parts are 

 creamy white. The color tones vary with the frog's activity; 

 it may be quite brown and the back stripe more yellowish 

 than green. 



Habits, habitat. — Grass grown, muddy margins of ponds 

 are the special haunt of the cricket frog. There it forages for 

 insects through the day, easily captured larvae and pupse or 

 crickets and grasshoppers, craneflies and other flying insects, 

 which it can catch b}/ long leaps in air such as few other frogs 

 can make. 



Like whirligig beetles, cricket frogs are easily coaxed out 

 of hibernation and they become active in every warm spell 

 of winter. 



Breeding habits. — ^They lay their eggs in late April or May, 

 attaching the single eggs (sometimes small clusters) to sub- 

 merged grass blades. In that season the males join in a chorus 

 of sharp chirping calls rapidly repeated and often compared 

 to the quick striking together of two pebbles. 



Size. — Its body is not more than an inch long. 



Range. — Eastern North America, southward to Florida and 



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