IpS ECOLOGY AND LIFE HISTORY OF THE COMMON FROG 



The best method I know is to get a six-inch Ordnance map of the area. 

 The surveyors rarely missed the smallest pond, and with the map one 

 can leave the road and walk straight to the pond. Abroad, ask the 

 local inhabitants. 



Literature 



The use of scientific literature forms a part of the basic training of 

 a scientist. Those people without scientific training, or those who have 

 not themselves carried out any original work in science do not usually 

 know the steps necessary in order to find out what has been done before 

 in that particular line of study. 



The addition of new knowledge to science is not properly done 

 without this process of finding out, for the building of science is not 

 constructed by anyone who chooses to throw a brick on to a heap, 

 but by laying it with the intention of contributing to the whole 

 edifice. A book may be a useful start to this work, but the main 

 object of books is to stimulate thought, and for the detailed records it 

 is usually necessary to go to the original source in a scientific journal. 

 For every science, there is some form of annual publication in which 

 at least the titles of papers are listed, and in many there are abstracts 

 as well. By consulting these, a list of apparently relevant pubhcations 

 is built up. The next step is to see and make extracts from these papers. 

 All this work has to be done with the aid of a scientific hbrary. It is 

 hardly possible to get very far in zoology without the hbrary of the 

 Zoological Society of London, and it is therefore practically essential 

 to join the society. The quickest way of using any hbrary is to attend 

 in person, but, once the journal is known, it can be sent by post. It 

 should, however, be remembered that it is rarely necessary to read the 

 whole of a scientific paper thoroughly, and many consulted will turn 

 out to be useless for your purpose. In a short time at the hbrary, it is 

 therefore possible to get the main facts you need from quite a number 

 of papers, and, if there is one that needs more detailed study, it can be 

 borrowed. 



It is not necessary to know a foreign language well in order to 

 understand a foreign paper. Many of the technical terms will be found 

 to be nearly the same, and what is wanted is not a literary translation 

 but the sense of it. The World List of Scientific Periodicals shows for 

 each journal, English or foreign, where in the British Isles any particular 

 journal is to be found. It is just possible that there is another hbrary 



