MAY PLIES AND MIDGES OF NEW YORK » 



species of A t h e r i x , as lias been kindly indicated to me in 

 correspondence by both Professor A. Giard of Paris and Dr R. 

 Lauterborn of Ludwigshafen. 



THE SUMMER FOOD OF THE BULLFROG (RAN A OATES- 

 BIANA SHAW) AT SARANAG INN 



(With plate 1) 



BY JAMES G. NEEDHAM 



Bullfrogs are common at Saranac Inn. Any warm evening 

 their sonorous notes may be heard reverberating through the 

 tamarack swamps, echoing and reechoing across Little Olear 

 pond between Green hill and the outlet, or rising with a startling 

 crescendo near at hand from the shallows of the reedy creek, 

 setting the thread-rushes trembling, and fretting the face of the 

 water with infinitestimal wavelets^ striking with wonder and 

 admiration the ears of the stranger accustomed only to the 

 vocal powers of the lesser civilized frogs. By day they sit in the 

 edge of the water, stolidly basking in the sunshine, picking a 

 straying bee or dragonfly out of the air, or lapping a floating ant 

 or an emerging caddisfly from the surface of the water, eating 

 much or little according to the bestowal of Providence, and when 

 alarmed by our tooi close approach, plunging away with a single 

 dilatory and awkward leap into deeper water. Their tadpoles, 

 likewise of phenomenal size, are to be seen about the submerged 

 timbers in Little Clear pond and creek. They are oftenest 

 observed resting upon the logs in the sunshine. Frequently, 

 when crossing the bridge over Big Olear creek on the Otisville 

 road during our first field season, I stopped to watch them sun- 

 ning themselves on the submerged bridge timbers, and often 

 dropped pebbles upon them to see them swim away. They would 

 wriggle and sidle and slide off the timbers^ and then with a 

 motion that appeared most deliberate strike a straight course 

 obliquely downward far away across the clear deep waters of the 

 stream, moving slowly forward by sculling undulations of the 

 enormous banner-like tail. 



During July and August, 1900, I preserved the food of a number 

 of adult bullfrogs from Little Olear creek, taking the stomachs of 

 chance specimens that were killed for food and preserving and 



