FOOD, HIBERNATION AND MIGRATION 97 



diiFicult to avoid the conclusion that during hibernation under water, 

 the frog eats aquatic animals, It is, of course, possible that the food is 

 eaten when it is stranded above water, but there is not the smallest 

 evidence for tliis, and it is more logical to accept the surprising in- 

 formation as it stands. 



Hibernation 



This is a subject on which, for a change, there is a considerable 

 amount of information, and the two dissenters are undoubtedly 

 wrong. 



Fatio (1872), Mailles (1881), WolterstorfF(i904), Boulenger (1912), 

 Barthelemy (1926), Hecht (1930) have accounts that agree with one 

 another and with my own observations. Heron-Royer (1885), 

 usually an acute observer, did not believe that the frog hibernates under 

 water, and this scepticism was shared by the natural history corres- 

 pondent of the Observer in 1934, Mr. Eric Parker. The result of this 

 was a series of letters from people who had themselves seen frogs 

 hibernating under water, with such details that they form a considerable 

 contribution to scientific literature from an unusual source. In the 

 following description, I draw from all the authors cited above, and 

 from my own observations. 



It is undoubtedly true that frogs hibernate both on land and under 

 the water. Hecht considered that most of them hibernate under water, 

 particularly if there is a current, but I feel that there is some doubt 

 about the evidence. It is easier to fmd them under water, because they 

 can sometimes be seen, or dredged up from the bottom. Moreover, 

 the area of water in any normal area of country is very small compared 

 with that of the land. Even if an equal number of frogs hibernated 

 in both situations, there would be a far higher concentration o£ the 

 animals in the water. It is indeed often hardly practicable to search 

 some possible place for land-hibernation. In one winter, I dredged two 

 streams, and found one frog in each. As I passed along the beds of the 

 streams, I saw innumerable crevices in the banks in which frogs might 

 have been lurking, but to search even one or two of them would have 

 needed pick, shovel and axe, for the crevices were among the roots 

 of the hedge. The total number of such inaccessible habitats in a 

 square mile of country must be prodigious, and it seems that only luck 

 can lead to one that really does contain frogs. It is noteworthy that 

 almost all the records in the Uterature are of accidental finds — someone 



