COMMON FROG. Rana temporario. 



The general form and appearance of this creature are too well known to need much 

 description. It is found plentifully in all parts of England, wandering to considerable 

 distances from water, and sometimes getting into pits, cellars, and similar localities, where 

 it lives for years without ever seeing water. The food of the adult Frog is wholly of an 

 animal character, and consists of slugs, possibly worms, and insects of nearly every 

 kind, the wire-worm being a favourite article of diet. A little colony of Frogs is most 

 useful in a garden, as they will do more to keep down the various insect vermin that 

 injure the garden, than can be achieved by the constant labour of a human being. 



The chief interest of the Frog lies in the curious changes which it undergoes before it 

 attains its perfect condition. Every one is familiar with the huge masses of transparent 

 jelly-like substance, profusely and regularly dotted with black spots, which lie in the 

 shallows of a river or the ordinary ditches that intersect the fields. Each of these little 

 black spots is the egg of a Frog, and is surrounded with a globular gelatinous envelope 

 about a quarter of an inch in diameter. According to gipsy lore, rheumatism may be 

 cured by plunging into a bath filled with Frog spawn. 



On comparing these huge masses with the dimensions of the parent Frog, the observer 

 is disposed to think that so bulky a substance must be the aggregated work of a host of 

 Frogs. Such, however, is not the case, although the mass of spawn is forty or fifty times 

 larger than the creature which laid it. The process is as follows : The eggs are always 

 laid under water, and when first deposited, are covered with a very slight but firm 

 membranous envelope, so as to take up very little space. No sooner, however, are they 

 left to develop, than the envelope begins to absorb water with astonishing rapidity, and 

 in a short time the eggs are inclosed in the centre of their jelly-like globes, and thus 

 kept well apart} from each other. 



In process of time, certain various changes take place in the egg, and at the proper 

 period the form of the young Frog begins to become apparent. In this state it is a black 

 ^rub-like creature, with a large head and a flattened tail. By degrees it gains strength, 

 and at last fairly breaks its way through the egg and is launched upon a world of 

 dangers, under the various names of tadpole, pollywog, toe-biter or horseuaiL 



