36 



THE YOUNG NATUEALIST. 



is fixed at the entrance of the mouth, the tip pointing down the throat. 

 When wanted for use, this tongue, which is very long, is darted out with 

 great rapidity, and the insect secured on the glutinous tip. When its prey 

 is a worm, the frog advances upon it with open jaws, seizing and worrying 

 it, like a terrier does a rat. 



Another very singular thing about the frog, and one, too, I venture to say, 

 quite unknown to those whose knowledge of its habits is confined to an occa- 

 sional glimpse of one about their garden or orchard. This is simply that he 

 can climb a tree if he feels inclined. Our authority for this statement is the 

 late Rev. C. A. Johns, that most genial and accurate writer on trees, birds, 

 flowers and other " common objects of the country/ and his statement which 

 appeared in the Zoologist, has been abundantly confirmed by others. 



Another singular habit of the frog has been recorded by most natural his- 

 torians, but whether it is worthy of belief or not I will not venture to say. 

 It is said to have been known to kill fish in a pond by jumping on their 

 backs and thrusting its fore feet into the gills. A frog, too, (according to 

 tradition) once clung to the throat of a water-rat, and soon choked it, a very 

 remarkable feat truly. For my own part I should scarcely think so sharp- 

 toothed and active an animal as the water-rat would be easily disposed of by 

 a poor frog, and I am consequently inclined to doubt the whole. 



Like most other reptiles, froggy occasionally changes his skin, generally 

 losing it piece by piece in the water, but sometimes he will gulp down his 

 cast-off garment by way of a snack. 



The frog is about the only reptile in this country which does not labour 

 under the disadvantage of having an ill name. IS'o one, I believe, has ever 

 charged the poor creature with being poisonous or hurtful in any way. In- 

 deed some curious folks in Oxfordshire (and other counties for all I know to 

 the contrary), have been known to swallow small frogs as a remedy for con- 

 sumption; and one placed alive in the mouth of a child suffering from thrush, 

 is said in Cheshire, to be a certain cure for that complaint. The frog, how- 

 ever, though harmless, has many enemies. That crafty glider among the 

 ferns— the fox, the slow badger, and the active weasel and stoat, do not dis- 

 dain such ignoble fare, neither does the hedgehog. The magpie, the jay, the 

 carrion crow, and many of the hawks also devour the poor creature, so also 

 do the viper and the snake. Then it has enemies in the water too. That 

 stately and beautiful riverside frequenter — the heron— often preys on the 

 frog ; and all readers of story books know what was the fate of the " frog who 

 would a wooing go." The gluttonous pike or jack is also a great enemy of the 

 frog. A fisherman once told me that he had caught a jack in a ditch, which, 

 immediately after its capture, flung up three great yellow frogs, one of which 



