302 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. 



tical, but it was only personal study and experience that 

 made me an unbeliever. 



I can feed a single frog by dangling a bit of meat 

 before its nose; the meat stirs and the frog seizes it, 

 but it will not pick up that meat from the ground if 

 thrown there. Suppose you have a million frogs. 

 Imagine yourself feeding them by dangling meat be- 

 fore each individual nose ! 



Tadpoles are hatched by the thousand for every frog 

 that becomes adult. Fish, birds and frogs feed on 

 them in the larva or tadpole state, and when they 

 emerge from that they encounter the same enemies, 

 with snakes added. 



The frog is a solitary animal, never in the company 

 of another except in the spring of the year, when mat- 

 ing, or in the winter, when they congregate in spring 

 holes, or other places. They cannot be kept in num- 

 bers, like fishes, because they would starve if obliged 

 to compete for food with their fellows. The frog farm 

 has not yet been established where they can be hatched 

 and fed artificially until ready for market, and it never 

 will be. 



When you hear of any person rearing frogs on arti- 

 ficial food it is simply a lie. The frog is being killed 

 out where it is hunted, and the supplies come from re- 

 mote districts, where the rural population does not eat 

 them, or where there is no population. 



According to inquiries of the United States. Fish 

 Commission the annual catch in the United States is 

 but little less than 1,000,000, with a grois value to the 

 hunters of about $50,000, or 5 cents each. The con- 

 sumer pays three times that price, which varies, accord- 

 ing to the market. Dressed legs yield the hunters 

 from 10 to 50 cents per pound. The bullfrog is the 



