364 COMMON FROGS AND TOADS 



no means inclined in their adult state to confine 

 themselves to the immediate neighbourhood of water, 

 and who are often to be met with in hosts in places 

 in which the soil is very dry for many weeks at a 

 time, always lay their eggs in water ; but bull-frogs 

 certainly do not usually do so. On the contrary, 

 they choose places which, although near and often 

 overhanging bodies of water, are above, and often 

 considerably above them. In the rainy season, 

 large masses of white, frothy matter, looking like 

 colossal " cuckoo spits," are often to be seen placed 

 among the twigs of shrubs growing on the banks 

 of ponds, or on any islet in the water. Their 

 appearance is so peculiar and so little suggestive 

 of their true nature that a very distinguished 

 zoologist, on observing them in the Garden at Alipur, 

 had some specimens collected and sent to me as 

 fungal growths. A very casual inspection of their 

 contents was enough to show that he was mistaken. 

 They are composed of a frothy matrix, soft and 

 semi-fluid in the ^interior of the mass, but setting 

 into a membranous layer on the surface, and in- 

 cluding innumerable ova. The latter hatch out into 

 their soft bed, and the young tadpoles continue to 

 inhabit it for a considerable time, passing through 

 the earlier stages of evolution in it, and, only after 

 having become considerably developed, working their 

 way out to fall into or struggle down to the water. 

 The spectacle that appears when one of the masses 



