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THE OREGON NATURALIST. 



Vol. III. Portland, Oregon, September, 1896. No. 9 



ANEW INDUSTRY 



BY ANGUS GAINES. 



In England, many 

 people regard frogs 

 as great delicacies 

 and in France, they are still 

 more highly esteemed, but 

 in America, there is a general 

 prejudice against them which is being dis- 

 pelled by very slow degrees. Restaurants 

 and hotels did not until recently keep 

 frogs on their bills of fare, and though 

 they were usually retained on their order- 

 list they were rarely called for, except by 

 foreigners, or by young men of an ad- 

 venturous turn who tasted them out of 

 curiosity. Those who did taste frogs 

 recognized them at once as most delicious 

 tidbits, aud the despised batrachians be- 

 gan to grow in public favor. 



The frogs in their native ponds had 

 been but little disturbed, for few people 

 thought seriously of catching these for 

 the market, and it was only occasionally 



that boys out on some hunting 

 and fishing trip would secure a 

 few and offer them for sale. As 

 soon as a steady market was 

 found for them the price rose 

 and the hunt for frogs became 

 so general that their numbers diminished 

 rapidly. As the demand continued to in- 

 crease the supply diminished until a new 

 industry, frog raising, arose to supply the 

 deficiency. 



Our most common frogs, such as 

 spring-frogs, wood-frogs and crecket- 

 frog are all too small for table use, and 

 the bull-frog, Rana cantesbiana, is the 

 only really esculent batrachian. Holbrook 

 says that these frogs sometimes attain a 

 length of twenty-one inches. Their color 

 is an indescribable blending of green, 

 brown and yellow which so perfectly 

 matches the hues of the aquatic herbage 

 in which they lurk that a sounding 

 splash in the water is often the first intim- 

 ation which the intruder has of the 

 animal's presence. People whose ac- 

 quaintance with bull-frogs extends only 

 to such chanc^ meetings in the swamps 

 would not think them very promising sub- 

 jects for domestication, yet the work of 

 raising them for the market is very simple. 

 Starting a frog-farm is not very expen- 

 sive, for the frogs do best in places where 

 the land could not be used for any other 

 purpose. The frog-farm best known to 

 me is a large pond, shallow throughout, 



