FIELD BOOK OF PONDS AND STREAMS 



through midsummer, especially on moist evenings, it repeats 

 its famous call, "be drowned, better go round," and as boldly 

 now as in former years it says "jug-o-rum, more rum." 

 During the breeding season bullfrogs, often a dozen or so 

 mating pairs, gather in ponds and at night it is comparatively 

 easy to capture them. They float partly outstretched at 

 the surface and when the light is flashed on them they ap- 

 pear paralyzed though their paralysis is far from dependable. 

 The way to catch them by hand is to seize them very firmly 

 by both hind legs, for a bullfrog "in the hand" is strong and 

 apparently much larger than the same one in the pond. 



Life history. — ^Bullfrogs usually lay their eggs at night, 

 during the last of June or in July. The egg mass, a film of 

 jelly containing 10,000 to 20,000 small eggs, is nearly two 

 feet across and floats near the surface, anchored and half 

 hidden by brush or caught on plant stems. 



The tadpoles are two years old or more before they trans- 

 form into frogs, spending two winters, sometimes a third, in 

 the tadpole stage, finally becoming frogs in late August. All 

 of the large tadpoles so common in pools in late fall or early 

 spring are either green frog or bullfrog tadpoles; there are 

 apt to be many more of the green frogs. But any tadpole 

 over three and a half inches long is pretty surely a bullfrog; 

 one year old bullfrog tadpoles seldom show their hind legs. 



Size. — Body of the male 7 to 8 inches long, the female the 

 same. 



Range. — North America, east of Rocky Mountains, and 

 introduced west of the Rockies. 



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