The Pickerel Frog 



The inner sole tubercle of the foot is small; the outer still smaller. 

 The palm of the hand has well-developed tubercles. 



Range: The Pickerel Frog is found throughout the eastern 

 part of North America, west to the Great Plains, and north to 

 Hudson's Bay. 



If we go to the meadow for blue flags in May, we are likely 

 to hear the Pickerel Frogs (Figs. 221 and 222) croaking with low 

 voices in the quiet shallows of the meadow brook or of the pond- 

 margin near by. The prolonged note is very distinctive. It 

 is well described by saying that it resembles the sound produced 



The Pickerel Frogs are croaking when the blue flags are in bloom. 



in tearing resisting cloth of some sort. The pitch varies with 

 the individual, but is always low. The range is from G to A 

 below middle C. 



As we approach the brook, picking our way over the boggy 

 ground with its sedges, sweet white violets and blue flags, many 

 small spotted frogs leap astounding distances on both the near 

 and the far side of the brook, striking the water in a series of 

 successive splashes. The surface of the water is scarcely ruffled, 

 and the frogs are immediately buried in the mud or hidden under 

 shelving bits of moss at the brook's edge. The Pickerel Frogs 

 are even more agile than the Common Leopard Frogs. 



The brook and the fields and meadows near make the home 

 of the Pickerel Frogs, and we shall find them here in all sizes, 

 from those one year old and only an inch and a quarter long to 

 large ones that are three inches in length. 



There is perhaps no other of our frogs that presents a coat 



189 



