438 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST: : [VoL XXXII. 
The gelatinous. masses left on the bottom of ponds swell and rise 
to the surface after a few days, and later sink 20 to 30 cm., where 
they hang suspended. From the size attained by the jelly-capsule 
surrounding each egg one may judge of the length of time the eggs 
have been laid. The eggs hatch after 6 to 19 days (about 1034 days 
in the terrarium, and 1214 to 13% in the ponds outside). The larvæ 
form a jet-black mass on the egg-jelly, and then swarm about over 
it, and in two or three days scatter and hang attached by their 
adhesive organs to floating leaves and to plants. After a week their 
external gills are gone, and they have taken on the well-known “ tad- 
pole” proportions. The jelly floats about and dissolves away. 
The tadpoles develop their hind legs in 55 to 6o days after hatch- 
ing, when 38 to 44 mm. long; and both fore legs when 70 mm. long. 
They eat anything that is soft, chiefly decaying vegetable matter; 
are very fond of putrid veal, and thrive well on earthworms in a 
similar state. After 79 to 81 days, when 45 to 50 mm. long, the tad- 
poles transform into small frogs.’ 
These young frogs all leave the water immediately, and after a few 
days move away from the shores of the ponds to scatter abroad, each 
settling in some separate hunting ground, there to remain four years 
or more, till sexual maturity calls them back to their native pond. 
At the first the young frogs are 15 to 20 mm. long; they grow to be 
25 mm. long the first season, 30 mm. the second year, 50 to 55 mm. 
the third, 60 mm. or more the fourth, and 70 to 80 mm. the fifth, 
when they are sexually mature. 
Kept in captivity they soon grow fat and dull (ż.e., tame), and 
furnish to careful observation some facts of interest to comparative 
psychologists, though it cannot be said that they give much evidence 
of high psychic activity. 
Later, when these snakes were removed, the frogs no longer 
exhibited alarm at a stick. This snake seems to hypnotize the frogs 
so that they make no resistance but allow themselves to be swallowed, 
while they will flee from some other snakes. They seem also to 
recognize this enemy by its odor, if we accept the author’s evidence. 
They learned to come to a certain place to be fed at a certain time, 
and, after wandering about in the night time, came regularly back to 
some habitual resting place to spend the day. 
They fed most voraciously, eating even hornets without great 
1 In one case all the eggs of a bunch were white and produced albino tadpoles, 
with dark eyes, however; but these became brown and changed into frogs but 
little lighter than normal. 
