FROGS. 319 
The Frog has no little power to assume various shades of 
colour. These Chameleon-like properties are very manifest when 
Frogs taken from different situations are placed together. For 
example, if a Batrachian be taken from, say, among heather on a 
moor, a hay-field, a fish-pond, and some cavity under a stone, and 
put in the same Vivarium, there would be an assemblage of 
animals exhibiting a considerable variety of really beautiful 
colouring. 
Frogs, like Snakes, Lizards, and Toads, shed their cuticle 
periodically. A Frog, when about to “ change its skin,” often 
presents, as does the Snake under similar circumstances, a bluish- 
white appearance of the eye. It also spends a great portion of its 
time in water. It sometimes, as does the Toad, swallows its cast- 
off covering. 
It is not a difficult matter to rear young Frogs from spawn. 
The spawn, in a small quantity, should be placed in a shallow 
vessel filled with water. The hatching of the eggs depends very 
greatly upon the temperature of the water in which they are 
kept. Spawn will hatch in a few days in a sunny greenhouse. 
For the first portion of their existence the young tadpoles are 
vegetable-feeders, but gradually they become carnivorous, and if 
flesh be not supplied to them in some form they will devour each 
other. A piece of raw meat or a dead garden-worm will provide 
many tadpoles with food for a long time. These little creatures 
must be furnished with some means of getting cut of the rays of 
the sun when it becomes too hot for them, or they will die. The 
most trying time of a tadpole’s existence is when it is about to 
complete the absorption of its tail, and to leave the water to seek 
food upon land. As the captive tadpoles arrive at this period of 
their lives they should be provided with some means of escaping 
for a time from the water. A piece of floating board will answer 
the purpose very well. Tadpoles of this age are wonderful 
climbers, and therefore the vessel in which they are confined 
must be covered, or they will be lost. The little Frogs, which 
are beautiful creatures, as soon as they have finally left the tad- 
pole-state, should be put in some such place as a fernery, where 
they will thrive on tiny flies and worms, ants, and the like. They 
soon become tame, 
