1940 The Zoologist — December, 1869. 



inactively at the bottom of the vessel, or leave the water and talie 

 shelter araong the wet grass, and beneath stones in moist situations. 

 So situated they become an easy prey to their more active and less 

 advanced fellows, which rarely pass them without a bite. Hence, in 

 this transition state from the tadpole to the frog, they are frequently 

 found in a very mutilated condition. So voracious is their appetite, 

 that if an individual in this helpless and advanced stage be left through 

 the night with the others,. it is sure to be found in the morning dead 

 and half devoured. While their appetite is thus so voracious, it is 

 not easily satisfied ; for if a bit of beef or mutton be offered to them, 

 ihey will fasten on it immediately they discover it, and remain so for 

 seven or eight hours at a stretch, and then only give it up by force; 

 and though they may be actively devouring it all that time, yet at the 

 first favourable opportunity will return and renew their attack as 'if 

 they had been kept without food for a week ; provided it be ^animal 

 food nothing comes amiss, and hence it is not to be wondered at that 

 tliey should be found feeding on the common white slug, as your cor- 

 respondent noticed. On more than one occasion I have found these 

 young cannibals congregated into large black masses, busily occupied 

 with something, their heads being placed centrally and their bodies 

 regularly radiating from one point, they resembled a large black com- 

 posite flower. On driving them away I have found them feeding on 

 the dead body of a full-grown frog, and probably the very one that 

 had given them birth. They have no kind of affection; anything in 

 the shape of food is acceptable." — Zool. 676. 



No sooner has the tail totally disappeared and the usual limbs of a 

 frog been produced, than the mode f)f respiration becomes totally 

 changed, and the metamorphosed animal instead of being purely 

 aquatic becomes strictly amphibious, residing at pleasure in the water 

 or out, just as it finds most agreeable : it is at this period that those 

 remarkable migrations take place which have attracted so much atten- 

 lion, and have induced so many fabulous accounts of showers of frogs, 

 accounts which it is quite impossible for a naturalist to believe, and 

 equally impossible to persuade the non-naturahst to disbelieve. 

 Certain atmospheric conditions are no doubt essential to this general 

 movement among the juvenile frogs : it usually takes place after a 

 shower, when the surface of the ground is moist : a certain amount of 

 atmospheric humidity seems also absolutely essential to the successful 

 prosecution of this migratory march. The frogs at this period often 

 seem to radiate in all directions, some of their number taking up with 



