THE COMMON FROG. 



J 57 



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 favorite 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 labor 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 trans- 

 parent 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 gypsy lore, rheumatism 

 may be cured by plunging into a bath filled with Frog spawn. 



COMMON FROQ.-Kaaa temporaria. 



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

 server 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 aston- 

 ishing 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 

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



