The Common Leopard Frog 



The boys who catch the young 

 frogs to sell as bait to fishermen call 

 the plain ones "policemen," the plain 

 but brilliant colour and the metallic 

 stripes giving, perhaps, the appear- 

 ance of a uniform. 



The young Leopard Frogs are 

 sacrificed in hundreds and thousands 

 as bait, wherever bass and pickerel 

 fishing is carried on. Each boat- 

 man about the small lakes of the 

 Middle West keeps a great wooden 

 box containing hundreds of the little 

 frogs, who desperately jump or climb, 

 only to fall back captives. Boys 

 search the lake margins, the marshes, 

 and the meadows, and put their 

 captives into bags or pails. They 

 are paid perhaps five cents per dozen 

 for them. When the frogs become 

 more scarce, the price may be as high 

 as twenty-five cents per dozen. 



In the meantime the country 

 about is overrun with grasshoppers 

 to such an extent that it is difficult 

 to grow even morning-glory vines 

 about the houses. Nature's supply 

 should not be so overwhelmingly 

 drawn upon, but, as in all -similar 

 cases, the creature for which the 

 demand is so great should be bred 

 for the purpose. (See foot note p. 

 234.) 



July. The Leopard Frogs eat 

 the young grasshoppers that are 

 so thick in the grass. 



X85 



