AMPHIBIA. 529 



seizes its food with great rapidity, using its tongue for that pur- 

 pose, which, being quite as long as the animal's body, darts at 

 prey with arrow-like speed, and it is swallowed entire, secured 

 by the glutinous adhesive secretion which lubricates the extrem- 

 ity of that organ. This rapM swallowing seems to indicate 

 that the taste is not very acute. The focal axis of a Frog's eye 

 is precisely as far distant as the length of each Frog's tongue, 

 and at that angle these animals catch their prey. 



The eggs of Frogs are gelatinous and numerous ; some natu- 

 ralists represent the number as thirteen hundred, and even as 

 many as fourteen hundred. The black points discernible in the 

 eggs are the germs of the Tadpole, or immature young. The 

 development is rapid, but few days elapsing, in some places, be- 

 fore the young is hatched, though where the climate is less mild 

 it is not hatched before the expiration of a month or more. The 

 tadpole state is quickly passed, and the metamorphosis becomes 

 complete. With the disappearance of the gills and tail, the 

 habits of the animal are changed ; atmospheric air now becomes 

 the sole element of respiration. While yet tadpoles, they were 

 the prey of fishes; now they become the prey of the weasel, the 

 snake, and various kinds of water-fowl, which feed eagerly upon 

 them. Very few out of every thousand that are hatched survive 

 the summer. Frogs are capable of being tamed, and instances 

 are related of their visiting houses regularly at the hour of meal- 

 time, and partaking of offered food. A story is related by Mr. 

 Bell of one which had such strong partiality for warmth, that 

 during the winter seasons, he " regularly and contrary to the 

 cold-blooded tendency of his nature, came out of his hole in the 

 evening and directly made for the hearth in front of a good 

 kitchen fire, where he would continue to bask and enjoy himself 

 till the family retired to rest . . . frequently nestling under the 

 warm fur of the cat, whilst the cat appeared extremely jealous 

 of interrupting the comforts and convenience of the frog." 



Besides the change of form in the Frogs, and the power of the 

 naked skin to act upon the air in such a way as to fulfil, in a 

 great degree, the office of lungs, and the fact that aerated water 

 may be made to subserve this process of cutaneous respiration ; 

 besides, also, their power of long abstinence from food, their hy- 

 bernation, and their age, as great as thirty-six years, in the case 

 of the tailless species, startling stories are told of their issuing 

 forth alive from the heart of trees, or the solid rock, after the 

 confinement of centuries. The experiments of Dr. Buckland, 

 however, favor the idea that frogs and toads cannot live more 



