ORDER BATRACHIA. 447 



dry season it is very torpid, but resumes its vivacity when 

 the rains set in. 



These froffs are domesticated in the Antilles for the use of 

 the table, and become tolerably familiar. The flesh is white 

 and delicate. It is fricasseed like fowl, and two frogs consti- 

 tute a good dish. 



The ocellata is found in Florida, and some countries of 

 South America. It has been confounded by several natu- 

 ralists with the bull-frog, to which it is not inferior in size. 

 It is six or eight inches in length, without comprising the 

 feet. 



The 7-ana halecina of Kalm, very much resembles the 

 common frog, but is smaller, its body being seldom more 

 than two inches long : its muzzle is also much more 

 pointed. 



It is very common in Carolina, where it is tiresome from its 

 continual croaking, and is said to announce the approach of 

 rain by its cries during the nights of spring. It seldom 

 comes to land ; but its leaps there are exceedingly rapid, and 

 are from fifteen to eighteen feet in length. In its general 

 manners it resembles the rana esculenta. 



The rana j>aradoxa is found at Surinam, and in other 

 countries of South America. Its tadpole grows to the largest 

 size before the metamorphosis takes place. From the ambi- 

 guous aspect which it exhibits in the latter part of its pro- 

 gress towards its ultimate form, it was long considered a 

 paradox by European naturalists. As the adult animal, in 

 consequence of the loss of an enormous tail, and of some 

 envelopments of the body, is less in size than the tadpole, 

 Mademoiselle Merian, Seba, and some other ancient observers, 

 were led into the error of supposing that the animal passed 

 from the frog to the tadpole state, and was subsequently trans- 

 formed into a fish. This error, though long consecrated by 

 time, is at the present day completely refuted. 



