THE FROG. 55 



Description of the larvae or tadpoles. 



These animals are oviparous, and its spawn, 

 which is generally in the month of March, con- 

 sists of a clustered mass of gelatinous, transpa- 

 rent, and spherical eggs, from six hundred to a 

 thousand in number, in the middle of each of 

 which is contained the embryo or tadpole, (which 

 is without feet, but furnished with a tail to aid 

 its motions in the water,) in the form of a black 

 globule. The spawn lies a month or five weeks, 

 according to the heat of the weather, before the 

 larvae or tadpoles are hatched. These, as in 

 several other species, are furnished with a kind 

 of small tubular sucker beneath the lower jaw, 

 by meana of which they hang at pleasure to the 

 under surface of aquatic plants. The interior 

 organs, when closely examined, are found to 

 differ in many respects from those of the old 

 frog. The intestines, in particular, are coiled 

 into a flat spiral form, somewhat resembling a 

 cable in miniature. When the animal is about 

 six weeks old, the hind legs appear, and in about 

 a fortnight these are succeeded by the fore legs ; 

 in this state it seems to have an alliance both to 

 the frog and lizard. Not long afterwards the 

 form is completed, and it, for the first time, ven- 

 tures upon lan'd. Frogs are at this period often 

 seen wandering about the brinks of the water in 

 such immense multitudes, as to induce a belief 

 among the vulgar, of their having descended in 

 showers from the clouds. 



