The YOtfHC HATtfBAMST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Part 104. AUGUST, 1888. Yol. 9. 



BRITISH FROGS AND TOADS. 



By LINNiEUS GREENING. 

 (A Paper read before the Warrington Field Club November iSth, 1887 J 



ITBUST there need be no apology for bringing to your notice, to-night, 

 our British Frogs and Toads ; this will complete the survey of our 

 British Batrachians, which we commenced last winter, when we considered 

 the Caudata, or tailed members of this group, viz., the Newts. 



Those we are about to consider belong to the division of the sub-kingdom 

 Batrachia, known as Anoura, or Ecaudata — tailless. 



The majority of people regard both frogs and toads with feelings of disgust, 

 and would probably like to annihilate them, but if their cruel wish were grati- 

 fied, I think they would be in as unpleasant a fix as was a certain monarch 

 whose name is familiar to most of us. We read in a book of extreme 

 antiquity thai a certain Pharaoh was so disgusted at the number of frogs in 

 his dominions, that he resorted to extraordinary means to get rid of them. 

 The result was, as might have been expected, that the plague of frogs ceased , 

 but a plague of insects followed. As frogs prey on insects, both in the larval 

 and adult forms, the removal of the natural check on their multiplication, 

 produced the unpleasant results recorded. 



That which was true some 3,000 years ago is true to-day, and any inter- 

 ference with the balance of nature, in the direction of wholesale slaughter of 

 Batrachians, is to be deprecated now, as then, and for similar reasons. 



But though from the book above referred to we have learnt, if we rightly 

 apprehend the meaning of the anecdote just quoted, a not unimportant 

 lesson ; yet we must go to the book of nature itself and study it carefully, if 

 we wish to form accurate ideas of how existing forms have come to be. The 

 development and life history of any one of our British Batrachians can be 

 easily observed in captivity, and will shew the student one of the most im- 



