352 LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



on his haunches close by, surveying me with a placid stare 

 of content, and swallowing air with a motion which seems to 

 suggest that even cold-blooded and thin-skinned amphibian 

 creatures are feeling the heat of the day to be oppressive. 

 Shall I quote to the frog (who is evidently listening intently) 

 what Izaak recommends should be done, by way of showing 

 esteem at once for fish and frog ? " In Part I. Chapter viii. 

 of the ' Complete Angler,' you will find the following remarks, 

 my amphibious friend ' Thus use your frog : put your hook r 

 I mean the arming-wire, through his mouth and out at his 

 gills' (where are your gills, you lung-breathing creature?), 

 ' and then, with a fine needle and silk sew the upper part of 

 his leg, with only one stitch, to the arming-wire of your 

 hook, or tie the frog's leg above the upper joint to the armed 

 wire ; and ' (mark this, my reptile) ' in so doing use him as 

 though you loved him.' There is a mark of the esteem in 

 which one member of the human species held you one who 

 thought angling the most ' calm, quiet, innocent recreation ' 

 that God ever made, and who regarded the term angler as a 

 synonym for a very honest man, since he tells us, in Part 

 I. Chapter xxi. of the classic volume from which I have 

 already quoted, that ' this dish' (referring to a special titbit) 

 ' of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men.' " 

 The frog winks as I conclude my oration, and I know there- 

 by he has heard and understood. To me, personally, the 

 frog is a most delightful animal. He afforded me delight in 

 youth when I read of his marvellous powers of supporting 

 life enclosed in a solid rock, and of his lively habits when 

 liberated from durance vile, like the genii in the "Arabian 

 Nights," whom the fisherman allowed to escape from the 

 marvellous jar he had fished up. But when I left childish 

 things behind, I began to esteem the frog still more highly ; 

 for, although I learned that the story of the solid rock episode 

 was incorrect, I found out that the amphibian had a most 

 curious life-history, and began life as a tadpole, which Mr. 

 Darwin might say represented an ancient ancestor of my own. 

 Latterly I found that a headless frog taught me something 



