170 THE ART OF TRAINING ANIMALS. 



SOBS who sit about in chairs to sleep off the effects of bad 

 whiskey. He has caught aud tamed several rats, and trained 

 •them to run across the floor. A sitter wakes up and sees the 

 rats running, and calls attention to the fact, when he is told 

 there are no rats there. This frightens the man, who thinks he 

 has got the tremens, and he quickly disappears from the saloon. 

 Frogs are made pets of in some counti'ies. In Vienna may 

 be seen gilt cages containing small frogs of a pretty green color, 

 \\hich are kept in drawing rooms, and amuse by their gambols. 

 Curious stories are told of the domestication of the tr^-frog, 

 which is a native of warm countries. It is said of Dr. Town- 

 son, that he had two pet frogs of this variety. He kept them 

 in a window, and appropriated to their use a bowl of water, in 

 which they lived. They grew quite tame ; and to two which he 

 had in his possession for a considerable time, and were particu- 

 lar favorites, the doctor gave the names of Damon and Musi- 

 dora. In the evening they seldom failed to go into the water, 

 unless the weather was cold and damp; in which case they 

 would sometimes abstain from entering it for a couple of days. 

 When they came out of the water, if a few drops were thrown 

 upon the board, they always applied their bodies as close to it 

 as they could ; and from this absorption through the skin, though 

 they were flaccid before, they soon again appeared plump. A 

 tree-frog, that had not been in the water during the night, was 

 weighed and then immersed ; after it had remained half an hour 

 in the bowl, it came out, and was found to have absorbed nearly 

 half its own weight of water. From other experiments, it was 

 discovered that these animals frequently absorbed nearly their 

 whole weight of water, and that, as was clearly proved, by the 

 under surface only of the body. They will even absorb water 

 from wetted blotting-paper. Sometimes they will eject water 

 with considerable force from their bodies, to the quantity of a 

 fourth part or more of their weight. Before the flies had disap- 

 peared in the autumn, the doctor collected for his favorite tree- 

 frog, Musidora, a great quantity as winter provision. When he 

 laid any of them before her she took no notice of them, but the 

 moment he moved them with his breath she sprang upon and 

 ate them. Once, when flies were scarce, the doctor cut some 

 flesh of a tortoise into small pieces, and moved them by the 

 same means ; she seized them, but the instant afterward rejected 

 them from her tongue. After he had obtained her confidence 

 she ate from his fingers dead as well as living flies. Frogs will 

 leap at the moving of any small object ; and, like toads, they 

 will also become sufficiently familiar to sit on the hand, and 

 submit to be carried from one side of a room to the other, to 



