154 Fish and Game Warden. [Bull. No. 1. 



The above specimens, as stated before, were all taken in the 

 spring, on April 7 and 8, 1910, and from ponds where food 

 conditions were limited and strained. It is noticeable that the 

 food of specimens taken from certain ponds depended largely 

 upon the nature of the iood supply in those ponds. Fourteen 

 of the specimens examined had eaten fish, and the total num- 

 ber of fish taken by the thirty specimens was thirty-two — an 

 average of a little over one fish for each frog. A little figuring 

 would show the damage a hundred or a thousand frogs could 

 do the small fish in the Hatchery if other food became scarce. 



Frogs taken from pond No. 3, where there were no small 

 fish and where all kinds of food was comparatively scarce, 

 owing to the fact that the pond had recently been drained and 

 all small fish removed, had eaten tadpoles of their own kind, 

 and had even turned cannibals and had eaten the smaller and 

 weaker members of their own family. 



Food of Specimens Taken from Other Waters. 



Specimens taken at other times, and at different times of 

 the year, and from various localities, show that bullfrogs 

 will eat almost any live animals that they can find, or that 

 come their way, provided the animals are not too large for 

 them to swallow. 



Our notes show that the food of frogs taken from natural 

 lakes and ponds in Kansas varies with the season of the year. 

 More than half of the food mass under such conditions is fre- 

 quently made up of insects, and large water beetles in many 

 instances make-up a good part of this insect food. The large 

 bullfrogs eat a good many young turtles, beginning to devour 

 them when they are first hatched and keeping it up until they 

 attain about the size of a silver half dollar. Specimens of bull- 

 frogs taken from small streams and creeks were found to have 

 fed largely upon crayfish, and at certain seasons of the yoar 

 as much as 50 per cent of their food was furnished by these 

 animals. 



Judging from our own studies we would say that fish are sel- 

 dom eaten by frogs that live in lakes and creeks where other 

 kinds of food are abundant. Where they can be had, crayfish 

 and insects make up the bulk of the bullfrog's food. However, 

 as we said before, they will take almost any animal that comes 

 along that is small enough for them to swallow. We have 

 taken mice and birds, such as sparrows and thrushes, from the 

 stomachs of bullfrogs. Snakes from a foot to fifteen inches in 

 length have been found in their stomachs. We learned many 

 years ago that when large and small frogs were shut up to- 

 gether in a live box and left for a few days, the larger speci- 

 mens would swallow the smaller ones. 



