THE FLORAL WOKLD AM) GARDEN GUIDE. 279 



in tbe water, and especially on the green duckweed which covers 

 the surface of ponds. It has little hooks on its jaws, to enable it to 

 bite tbe leaves, with a sort of tube or sucker on its lower lip, by 

 wbich it hangs to floating plants. When the tadpole is about six 

 weeks old, a pair of legs begin to make their appearance near 

 the tail, and by and by another pair come out near the head 

 (Fig. 2), the tail disappears, and the animal is then a young 

 frog. It makes its way out of the pond and begins to live on flies 

 and other living creatures ; many other changes having come about 

 in its body, which enables it to breathe air and digest a different 

 kind of food. As a great many young frogs leave their native ponds 

 at the same time, and make their way to fields and gardens, the 

 ground will seem alive with them sometimes, and people have 

 been known to fancy that a shower of frogs had fallen, but it has 

 only been the migration of thousands of them, obeying a natural 

 impulse, and turning their backs on the place of their birth, 

 begin to exercise for the first time their power of leaping and 

 crawling. Frogs have wonderfully strong muscles provided for the 

 movements of their legs, since they have so many different motions 

 to perform with them — swimming, walking, and leaping. Even 

 after a frojj bas its four legs, 

 it is a great swimmer, and 

 its feet are webbed with skin 

 between tbe toes, like those 

 of a duck, for after spending 

 the greater part of the year 

 on land, it returns to its pond 

 again, late in autumn, arid ,j£>Ts 

 when winter sets in, buries '^C^<; 



itself in the mud at the hot- e ^ s ^> M V^ 

 torn, and remains there in T-jV^--"'^ J^p^^p^ 



a torpid state until spring 



returns. The power of a frog's muscle is shown most in its leaping 

 and bopping, since it can jump into the air as high as twenty times 

 its own height, and at a single leap go the distance of fifty times 

 its own length. The bones and muscles of a frog's hind legs are 

 said to be very like those of a man, but we cannot very well fancy a 

 man being able to perform such a feat in the way of jumping or 

 leaping. The tongue of a frog, which it uses for catching its prey, 

 is very long and narrow, and is placed in its mouth quite differently 

 to that of most animals, hence it is fastened within the front of the 

 lower jaw, with the end lying towards the throat — just the reverse 

 way to that in which our own tougues lie in our mouths. It is 

 also covered with a sticky kind of liquid, to which the flies, as they 

 are caught, adhere, and not being able to escape, are drawn into 

 the frog's large mouth and sent down the throat. Watch as we 

 may, however, it is almost impossible to see the tongue of a frog as 

 he is fly-catching, so rapid is its motion. 



Frogs grow very slowly and live very long. They are nearly 

 related to toads, who pass through the same changes in their lives, 

 and are amphibious, or "both-lived." A toad can be known by the 



September. 



