THE BULLFROG 



99 



in itself he, we can only conjecture. In a creature with 

 so small a brain as that of a frog, we cannot dogmatically 

 affirm that the spinal marrow may not be an organ of 

 feeling, although there is nothing to show us that 

 it is. 



Every one knows the soft, smooth, moist skin of this 



animal. Its skin is one of its most important organs. 



Indeed, our own skin is by no means popularly credited 



with the great importance really due to it. " Only the 



skin ! " is an exclamation not unfrequently heard, and 



wonder is felt very often when death supervenes after a 



burn wdiich has injured but a comparatively small surface 



of the body. Our skin is indeed a most important 



structure, and able, in a very slight degi-ee, to supplement 



the action of the lungs as well as of the kidneys. In the 



frog it is really an organ of breathing, almost, if not 



quite, as indispensable as the lungs. Neither will suffice 



withovit the other. A frog may be strangely choked in 



two w^ays. To distend its lungs it is compelled to swallow 



air after closing its hps upon a mouthful of it. Thus a 



frog may be choked by keeping its mouth open. Again, 



no breathing (that is, no exchange of certain gases) can 



take place except on a surface which is moist ; therefore 



that a frog may breathe with its skin, that skin must be 



moist, and it is kept so by the exceptional ease with 



which water exudes forth from the body upon it. In 



fact Count Smalltalk only made Mrs. Leo Hunter speak 



accurately when he misrepresents her ode as being 



addressed to the " perspiring frog " — for the frog is one 



of the most perspiring of all animals. It is so to such a 



degree that one tied where it cannot escape the scorching 



rays of a summer's sun, will not only die, but soon become 



perfectly dried up — as we recollect discovering when a 



child, to our great sorrow and disappointment. 



