90 RANIDE. 



the body previously to their expulsion, and in the fishes, 

 this is effected after their actual depositions, in the Frog it 

 takes place during the passage of the eggs from the body of 

 the parent. As the season of spring advances, the renewal 

 of active existence after its temporary suspension is evinced 

 by the most energetic action of the procreative orgasm. 

 The male Frog leaps on the back of the female, and grasps 

 her behind the arm-pits with his fore legs, for w r hich purpose 

 a temporary developement of a warty protuberance takes 

 place on the thumbs, by means of which his hold is rendered 

 more firm and secure. So powerful is this instinct of adhe- 

 sion, that instances are not unfrequent of male Frogs seizing 

 upon and remaining firmly attached to the surface of large 

 fishes, from which they have not been detached without con- 

 siderable force. Izaak Walton quotes a passage from an 

 ancient writer which appears to refer to a fact of this kind. 

 " But before I proceed further," says honest Izaak, " I am 

 to tell you that there is a great antipathy betwixt the pike 

 and some Frogs ; and this may appear to the reader of Du- 

 bravius (a Bishop in Bohemia), who, in his book of Fish and 

 Fishponds, relates what, he says, he saw with his own eyes, 

 and could not forbear to tell the reader, which was ' As he 

 and the Bishop of Thurgo were walking by a large pond in 

 Bohemia, they saw a Frog, when the pike lay very sleepily 

 and quiet by the shore side, leap upon his head ; and the 

 Frog having expressed malice or anger by his swoln cheeks 

 and staring eyes, did stretch out his legs, and embraced the 

 pike's head, and presently reached them to his eyes, tearing 

 with them and his teeth those tender parts.'" It appears by 

 the sequel that the bishop's fisherman assured him that 

 " pikes were often so served." Now, although there is evi- 

 dently here much of the exaggeration which may naturally be 

 expected from the astonishment of ignorance, yet there is no 

 reason to doubt that the main facts are true. It happens, 



