The Pickerel-frog, Rana palustris LeConte. 



61 



LIFE-HISTORY OF THE PICKEREL-FROG. 



The paucity of literature on the habits of the pickerel-frog is very 

 evident. It has long masqueraded under the cloak of ''like Rana 

 pipiens in many respects." I have found that many a student has 

 difficulty in distinguishing the two forms, but in life the brown of the 

 pickerel-frog is wholly unlike the green of the meadow-frog; the spots are 

 more regular and square; the rear ventral parts are a bright orange, 

 the color so frequently associated with poisonous properties in Anura. 

 A dog or any animal which has had experiences with the secretions 

 of the pickerel-frog would no sooner try to eat one than it would a toad. 

 Frequently we have made the mistake of putting live pickerel-frogs 

 in jars with other forms, and have found the jar extremely frothy by 

 the time the laboratory was reached, and not infrequently some of the 

 other species were dead, apparently as a result. 



In habitat the}' are not exactly similar to Rana pipiens. The meadow- 

 frog is essentially a frog (in its greatest abundance) of the cat-tail and 

 sedgy marshes, while the pickerel-frog is more often found in sphagnum 

 bogs, marl ponds, cold streams, in the shallows of mill-ponds, or in the 

 quiet waters of bayous away from the currents of our clear streams. 

 It is the most abundant frog in our rock-bottomed and rock-walled 

 ravines, where it quite frequently breeds in the deep holes at the bases of 

 waterfalls and in the sources of our clear trout streams. It is not solely 

 restricted to streams or their tributaries, but does occasionally seek 

 swampy localities similar to the habitat of Rana pipiens, or quiet clear 

 ponds for ovulation. Like Rana pipiens, soon after ovulation it leaves 

 its breeding-grounds for meadow-lands. Some of the individuals which 

 breed in the ravines keep more or less to them during the whole summer. 



THE FIRST APPEARANCE. 



In times of appearance and breeding we find an interesting parallel 

 between this species and the common toad. To record one is an almost 

 certain criterion that the other is at the same stage in its life-history. 

 But in some years the toad precedes the pickerel-frog by a day or more, 

 so that the latter comes fifth in the order of first Anuran emergence 

 from hibernation. The records of first appearance are: 



For the day preceding or for the day of the record no maximum goes 

 below 58 degrees, the average being 67 degrees in either case. For a series 



