THE BULLFROG 99 



in itself be, we can only conjecture. In a creature with 

 so small a brain as that of a frog, we cannot dogmatically 

 affirm that the spinal marrow may not be an organ of 

 feeling, although there is nothing to show us that 

 it is. 



Every one knows the soft, smooth, moist skin of this 

 animal. Its skin is one of its most important organs. 

 Indeed, our own skin is by no means popularly credited 

 with the great importance really due to it. " Only the 

 skin ! " is an exclamation not unfrequently heard, and 

 wonder is felt very often when death supervenes after a 

 burn which has injured but a comparatively small surface 

 of the body. Our skin is indeed a most important 

 structure, and able, in a very slight degree, to supplement 

 the action of the lungs as well as of the kidneys. In the 

 frog it is really an organ of breathing, almost, if not 

 quite, as indispensable as the lungs. Neither will suffice 

 without the other. A frog may be strangely choked in 

 two ways. To distend its lungs it is compelled to swallow 

 air after closing its lips upon a mouthful of it. Thus a 

 frog may be choked by keeping its mouth open. Again, 

 no breathing (that is, no exchange of certain gases) can 

 take place except on a surface which is moist ; therefore 

 that a frog may breathe with its skin, that skin must be 

 moist, and it is kept so by the exceptional ease with 

 which water exudes forth from the body upon it. In 

 fact Count Smalltalk only made Mrs. Leo Hunter speak 

 accurately when he misrepresents her ode as being 

 addressed to the " perspiring frog '' — for the frog is one 

 of the most perspiring of all animals. It is so to such a 

 degree that one tied where it cannot escape the scorching 

 rays of a summer's sun, will not only die, but soon become 

 perfectly dried up — as we recollect discovering when a 

 child, to our great sorrow and disappointment. 



