BULL-FROG. Rana mugiens. 



This species is exceedingly active, making leaps of eight or ten feet in length and five 

 feet in height. There is a well-known story of a race between a Bull-Frog and an Indian, 

 the former to have three jumps in advance, and the distance about forty yards to a 

 pond from which the Frog had been taken. When the parties were ready to start, the 

 glowing tip of a burning stick was applied to the Bull-Frog, which set off at such a 

 rate, and made such astonishing leaps to get into the welcome water, that its human 

 opponent was vanquished in the race. 



In some places this creature is never disturbed, as it is supposed, perhaps with some 

 justice, to aid in keeping the water pure. The popular name of Bull-Frog is derived from 

 its cry, which is said to resemble the bellowing of the animal whose name it bears. 

 Several species of Frog have been classed under the same popular name. 



The colour of the Bull-Frog is brown, mottled with black above, and taking a greener 

 hue upon the head. The abdomen is greyish white, and the throat is white dotted with 

 green. The length of the head and body of the large species is rather more than six 

 inches, and a fine specimen will sometimes measure nineteen or twenty inches from the 

 nose to the extremity of its feet. The skin of the back is smooth, and without any 

 longitudinal fold. 



THERE is another tolerably common species inhabiting the same country, which is also 

 popularly called the Bull-Frog, but is known among men of science as Rana cldmitans. 

 It may be readily distinguished from the bull-Frog, which it otherwise greatly resembles, 

 by the presence of a glandular fold on each side of the back. It is a very noisy creature, 

 with a sharper and more yelping cry than the preceding species. When disturbed, it 

 shoots at once into the water, and there sets up its peculiar cry. It is more active than 

 the common bull-Frog, and if once released, is almost certain to escape, from the great 

 length and rapidity of its leaps, the creature never seeming to pause between two jumps, 

 but springing off the earth with an instantaneous rebound not unlike the flying leaps 

 of the jerboa or kangaroo. It is a moisture-loving species, and is never found fa^ 

 from water. 



WE now come to the best known of all the batrachians, the COMMON FROG of 

 Europe. 



