Vil 
THE FROG’S YEAR 
PEAKING of our British frog, Rana tempo- 
raria, Dr. Gadow writes: ‘ Next to Man there 
is no animal which has been studied so minutely, 
and has had so many primers and text-books written 
on it, as this frog. In spite of all this it is very 
little understood.” Perhaps there may be some 
interest, therefore, in following its familiar life- 
cycle round the year. In Scotland it is usually in 
March that the frogs leave their winter-quarters 
and betake themselves from near or far to standing 
or slowly flowing water. The winter-quarters are 
described by Gadow in the Cambridge Natural 
History as “mostly holes in the ground, under 
moss, or in the mud,” and Mr. O. H. Latter, ia his 
Natural History of some Common Animals, speaks 
of our frogs as hibernating “some in holes and 
drain-pipes, others in or on the mud at the bottom 
of ponds.” In his Ray Society monograph Dr. 
Boulenger says that “many males hibernate under 
water.” It seems, then, that the grass-frog’s habits 
vary considerably in different parts of its very wide 
range, and that some of them pass the winter in 
sheltered recesses far from the water. It should be 
noted that the grass-frog’s near relative, the common 
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