The Zoologist— December, 18(59. 1941 



the first congenial resting-place; others, more difficult to please, 

 passing on and on until they find a locality exactly adapted to their 

 taste. Here they establish a kind of home, shaded by or partially con- 

 cealed by overhanging leaves, and here they lie in wait for their prey. 



I have never seen a frog make even the slightest attempt to devour 

 a lifeless object. I have tried in vain to tempt them with dead butter- 

 flies, dead beetles, dead cockroaches, and dead grasshoppers ; but all 

 to no purpose : life, or at any rate motion, seems necessary to impart 

 a relish to the meal. Some writers have asserted that frogs devour 

 plant-lice or aphides, and thus render a most important service to the 

 gardener; but this I have been altogether unable to verify: the 

 aphides with which I have tried to tempt a tame frog, failed to attract 

 his attention : they were, as is their wont, of too lethargic a dis- 

 position to attract his notice, but a fly held buzzing between the 

 fingers would at once excite him, and would disappear with a celerity 

 that seemed altogether at variance with his usual sedate behaviour. 



It has been often noticed as a fact worthy of record that a frog 

 has been observed climbing a wall, or seated on the top of a wall, in 

 a position he would not have attained by any ordinary means of pro- 

 gression. These records arise for the most part from our ignorance of 

 the locomotive povvers which a frog not only possesses, but very com- 

 monly employs. The Rev. C. A. Johns, a most observant zoologist, 

 thus alludes to this phase of frog-life: — 



" Three several instances, proving that frogs can and do climb, 

 have fallen under my own notice : these are already recorded in print. 

 A fourth came under my notice on the 27th of October last. I was 

 digging for pupas at the base of a large willow tree in the valley of the 

 Itchen, near Winchester, with some young friends, when one of the 

 party exclaimed, ' Look at this frog climbing up the tree ! ' I quickly 

 ran round to the other side of the tree, and saw not one only, but five 

 or six young frogs, from one to two feet from the ground, climbing up 

 the rugged bark, and using their front and hind feet just as a sailor 

 employs his hands and feet when ascending the rigging of a ship. 

 One, which I did not myself see, was discovered at a height of five 

 feet from the ground in the act of descending. It had been alarmed 

 probably at our intrusion, and had fallen to the ground before I 

 reached the spot ; but I had no reason to doubt the accuracy of the 

 statement, for two or three members of my party pointed to the exact 

 spot from which it had fallen ; and if a frog can climb two feet, there 

 is no reason why it should not climb twenty or more." — Zool. 8861. 



