A FAMILIAR TALK ON DELAWARE COUNTY 

 FROGS. * 



BY T. CHALKLEY PALMER. 



The N'outhful beginner in Natural History, who is desirous 

 of grasping at once the concept of ginms could not do better 

 than make a little study of our frogs. The number of species 

 is not large and the genera are very few indeed, yet indivi- 

 duals abound ; so that, while material for study is in quantity, 

 there is not likely to be the mental confusion that would follow 

 an attempt of the unbooked to observe and record the members 

 of some intricate family like the minnows, or even the less 

 difficult, yet still puzzling natural group like the snakes. 



The study should be made, of course, upon the concrete 

 things — the frogs themselves. Books should come into action 

 only after considerable collection of specimens, considerable 

 observation of the living creatures at large or in captivity. 

 Names and classifications are of little value, either first or 

 last, except as they lend precision to observations made and 

 lead to new knowledge. In youth especially the one great 

 thing is to learn to see with the eye, to understand for one's 

 self the facts observed, without too much reference to things 

 in printed books. Boys are naturally observers, and many a 

 boy knows facts about frogs and their ways that have never 

 been printed. Meantime the busy people that compose the 

 scientific world are very desirous of knowing all about the 

 habits of living things, many of which they know only by 

 name and technical description — knowledge of the sort, pre- 

 cisely, that can be and is collected, in however haphazard 

 fashion, by young people in their fishing excursions, their 

 picnickings, their flower hunting trips in Spring. 



Our native frogs, strictly so called, of the genus Nana, fall 

 into five (|uite distinct species. Beside these there are the tree 

 frogs of three species, and in closely related genera two more 



* Abstract r)f int'orin.';] rcniarks liulnrt' tin- Institute. 



