A Study of the Food Habits of the Ithacan 
» Species of Anura During 
Transformation* 
Puitie A. Munz of Pomona College, Claremont, California 
In recent years almost as much interest has been attached to the study of the 
habits of animals and to the relation to the environment as to the structure and 
classification. Naturally enough the food-habits are among those that can be most 
profitably studied; as an example I have to cite only the work of Professor S. A. 
Forbes of the University of Illinois on the food of fresh-water fishes. His results, 
embodied in a series of papers published by the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural 
History, have been very suggestive and an inspiration to investigation in allied 
groups. When, therefore, a study of the food-habits of various species of the Anura 
during their transformation period was suggested to me, it was gladly taken as a 
subject of some promise. 
The purpose of the investigation was to learn something more definite than was 
already known concerning the food before and after transformation and to see how 
the change from the one kind to the other came about. It was thought that such 
knowledge might aid to some extent in frog-culture during this rather critical period 
of a frog’s development. 
The problem was undertaken with the advice and criticism of Doctor A. H. 
Wright of Cornell University. To him my sincere gratitude is hereby given, not 
only for his suggestion of the problem and for his help in carrying it out, but for 
the abundant material which he so generously put at my disposal and which was 
the result of much careful collecting on his part. 
Largely because of the work he had been doing at Ithaca during the last ten 
years, material was available for all eight species of Anura occurring in the Cayuga 
Lake Basin of New York state. In all, 586 specimens were dissected, giving a 
fairly representative series for each of the species which were as follows: 
Rana cateshbeiana Shaw. The Bullfrog. 
Rana clamitans Latreille. The Green-frog. 
Rana sylvatica Le Conte. The Wood-frog. 
Rana palustris Le Conte. The Pickerel-frog. 
Rana pipiens Schreber. The Leopard- or Meadow-frog. 
Hyla crucifer Wied. The Peeper. 
Hyla versicolor Le Conte. The Tree-toad. 
Bufo americanus Holbrook. The Common Toad. 
METHODS 
As specimens were collected in the field they were immediately killed, usually in 
formalin, in order that digestion would immediately cease. Each lot that was col- 
A contribution from the Zoological Laboratory of Cornell University of Ithaca, New York. 
