12 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



NOTES ON THE FOOD 



General. Leaving aside the plant fragments eaten, which were 

 of considerable number and variety, which were obtained both 

 from the water and the air (as shown by the presence of filamen- 

 tous algae and a broken flower cluster in the same stomach), but 

 which were probably all obtained accidentally along with animal 

 food, there were present the remains of 164 animals. Of these 

 the largest number, 139, were insects, 18 were snails, 3 were 

 Crustacea, 3 were spiders, and 2 were vertebrates. The most im- 

 portant part of the food is doubtless insects and snails; the 

 former in great variety, the latter consisting of a single species. 

 Leaving aside frog no. 16, whose stomach contained only a large 

 meadow mouse, the other 15 had eaten on an average 9 insects 

 and 1.2 snails apiece. 



Of the insects eaten two were millipedes (apparently J u 1 u s , 

 but not in condition to identify with certainty) and the remainder 

 were hexapods. The ten orders present had the following numer- 

 ical representation : Diptera, 42; Hymenoptera, 22; 

 Hemiptera, 19; Coleoptera, 16; Trichoptera, 

 15 (not including 4 whose presence was evidenced only by sand sup- 

 posed to have been derived from larval cases) ; O d o n a t a , 11, 

 and a large mass of eggs of Tetragoneuria; Orthop- 

 tera, 6; Neuroptera, 3; Lepidoptera, 2 ( larvae) ; 

 Ephemeridae, 1 (nymph) . Of these the six orders first 

 named were present in fairly equivalent proportions, and these, 

 with the snail, Physa heterostropha, may be said to 

 constitute the staple food of the bullfrog in summer at Saranac 

 Inn. The bulk of the snails eaten was certainly greater than 

 that of the insects of any single order. The largest animal eaten 

 was the meadow mouse, and next in size were the two, craw- 

 fishes. 



Vertebrates. There were two vertebrates eaten; frog no. 16 

 had eaten nothing but a short-tailed meadow mouse (Arvicola 

 pennsylvanicus) of large size ; that was enough to fill his 

 stomach to its full capacity. How he came by this sumptuous 

 morsel I am unable to understand unless he found it dead and 

 floating down the creek. Frog no. 15 had swallowed a yearling 

 tadpole of his own species. 



