

Class in. COMMON FROG. 15 



Bfexsxs£, xoa£, xoat, 

 Bgsx£x.s%, xoa%, xoct%, 

 Aiy.va.7x xgyvujv rsxvx. * 



Brekekex, coax, coax, 

 Brekekex, coax, coax, 

 The offspring of the pools and fountains. 



Yet there is a time of year when they become Periodical. 



, Silence. 



mute, neither croaking or opening their mouths 



for a whole month : this happens in the hot sea- 

 son, and that is in many places known to the 

 country people by the name of the Paddock 

 Moon. Morton^ endeavours to find a rea- 

 son for their silence, but tho' his facts are true, 

 he is unfortunate in his philosophy. Frogs are 

 certainly endued (as he well observed) with a 

 power of living a certain time under water with- 

 out respiration, which is owing to their lungs 

 being composed of a series of bladders : but he 

 mistakes the nature of air, when he affirms that 

 they receive a quantity of cool air, and dare not 

 open their mouths for a month, from a dread of 

 admitting a warmer into their lungs. It is hardly 

 necessary to say, that in whatever state the air 

 was received, it would become vitiated ina certain 

 time. We must leave the fact to be accounted 

 for by farther experiments; but from what 

 we do know, we may partly vindicate Theo- 



* Comedy of the Frogs. f Hist. Northampt. 441. 



