Dot. 6, 1893.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



^91 



MR. JEWELL'S FROGS. 



Hartford, Conn., Sept. 'ZL — Editor Forest and 

 Stream: I inclose you accompanying thia letter some 

 photographs and a description thereof published in the 

 Hartford Courant, I don't know as it would be of any 

 special interest to any of your people, but as I have noted 

 for a good many years in reading your esteemed journal, 

 that matters of this kind interest a very large portion of 

 your readers, I have sent it to you that it may be one 

 more fact in the very many very curious things in 

 animal life. We may go back to the Proverbs for an 

 axiom, "The ox knoweth his owner," etc., and it would 

 almost seem as though the frogs represented in these 

 photographs had certainly intelligence enough to know 

 when dinner was ready and to come to the ringing of the 

 bell. L. B. Jewell. 



We reproduce one of the interesting photographs; it 

 shows thirteen at table. The Courant says: 



Pliny Jewell, Esq., of this city, at his beautiful home, 

 on Farmington avenue, has some of the queerest 

 "pets" that were ever trained, and those of his friends 

 who have been privileged to see him feed his bullfrogs 

 remember the occasion for the rest of their lives. They 

 tell here and there of what they have seen, and many- 

 people who hear them laugh at the story as ingenious 

 fiction. But it is all 

 true. They cannot ex- 

 aggerate either the 

 solemn manner or the 

 capacious appetites of 

 these queer and know- 

 ing frogs, A repre- 

 sentative of the Cour- 

 ant recently took in 

 the whole entertain- 

 ment and a photog- 

 rapher snapped instan- 

 taneous views of the 

 frogs as they sat about 

 waiting to be fed. 

 These pictures are re- 

 produced herewith 

 and must carry con- 

 viction to the most 

 skeptical. 



Back of Mr. Jewell's 

 house is a small pond, 

 full of lily pads, grass- 

 bordered.with a gravel 

 path about it. Red 

 goldfish gleam in the 

 water. Here and there 

 a turtle's head lies still 

 on the surface. But 

 the inhabitants and 

 rulers of this province 

 are the dozen or more 

 bullfrogs that have 

 lived there for six 

 years past and whose 

 whole bearing indi- 

 cates that they own 

 the pond and know 

 they do. 



They are simply 

 monstrous— great, fat, 

 unwieldy looking crea- 

 tures, but whoever 

 thinks them as stupid 

 as they look makes a 

 great mistake. They 

 know what they want 

 and they get it. Three 

 times a week, at 5 



o'clock in the afternoon, Mr. Jewell feeds them their 

 favorite article of diet, live mice. Promptly by 5 o'clock 

 on those afternoons the hungriest are up on the bank 

 waiting for him to come to his regular seat by the path. 

 When he rings a bell the rest of them come swimming 

 along from all parts of the pond and climb up beside the 

 vanguard; the goldfish that also hear the call come 

 swarming up to the shore, for they are to be fed, too, and 

 the black bn'ds and robins, hearing the bell, know it 

 means crackers for the fish and that if they are prompt 

 about it they can get their share, and so they come flying 

 to the pond, too. It is a queer sight — the fish in the 

 water, the birds in the air, and the frogs in one element 

 or the other as they prefer. 



The frogs cluster around Mr, Jewell and squatted on 

 tlie grass watch eagerly for him to hold out to them the 

 stick in which they are so deeply interested. It means a 

 royal dinner to them. Just to get up their appe- 

 tites he holds the plain rod two or three times fli'st, and 

 those who are hungriest jump for it as if it was already 

 baited. Thus they get into training. Then the tail of a 

 live mouse is slipped into a crack in the end of the stick, 

 and held out over the frogs that are drawn up around and 

 in front of their master. The mouse squeals once or 

 twice and kicks a little and suddenly up e^oes a frog, his 

 legs spread out in jumping fashion and his immense 

 mouth opened to its widest. He closes on the mouse and 

 by his own weight pulls it off the stick. The moment he 

 lands from his leap ne jumps madly into the water with 

 a "dug," and, lying there, spread out on his own stomach, 

 swallows his meal with every evidence of complete satis- 

 faction. If the mouse happens to climb out of the frog's 

 mouth, it swims away in safety. The frog doesn't try to 

 catch it in the water. Another queer fact is that, while 

 the frog will jump for a dead mouse as eagerly as for a 

 live one, he will not eat it. As soon as he gets back into 

 the water he spits it out. He knows what he wants and 

 it's that or nothing. 



On the day when the Courant had the opportunity to 

 study this queer entertainment fourteen great bullfrogs 

 were ranged in front of Mr. Jewell on the shore of the 

 pond. They climbed up from the water, jumped across 

 the grass, and with their eyes firmly fixed on him and 

 his wand, settled in the p^th. "Qrover Cleveland" is the 

 biggest of the lot and headed the procession. He wears 

 a full 19in. collar and takes everything he can get. On 

 this particular afternoon he swallowed three mice and 

 was evidently mad that the supply gave out so soon. He 

 wanted more. "Dave Hill" is another big fellow, and he 



tries to get Grover's prizes from him when he can, "Tom 

 Eeed" is another autocrat of the pond. He is the only 

 Republican in the collection; hut he knows no fear and 

 gets his full share every time. One of the funniest scenes 

 is when several frogs jump at once for the same mouse. 

 They go through the air very much as they do through 

 the water, with no end of sprawling legs hanging behind 

 them. They jump in different directions for the same 

 mouse, and they meet with a dull thud in mid air and 

 fall to the ground wondering what hit them. Then 

 some fellow who kept out of the scrimmage steps up and 

 carries off the mouse while the others are trying to make 

 out how they missed it. 



On this afternoon they exhausted the entire supply of 

 mice on hand, 25 of them. Mr. Jewell can't raise mice 

 enough to meet the demand, and has a standing offer of 

 5 cents apiece for all mice delivered to him. Whether 

 this tends to rid the city of the vermin or ofl'ers an in- 

 ducement to breed them is open to argument. 



There are only two varieties of frogs in the pond. One 

 kind are green and the others dark brown or red. One 

 family was brovight down from New Hampshire, and the 

 others are members of the old historic and aristocratic 

 family of Windham frogs imported from the famous 

 frog pond there. The frogs breed, but do not increase. 

 So far as known only two young ones have grown up. 

 The trouble is that young frog is about as appetizing as 

 live mouse to the big frogs, and they eat up the little 

 fellows when they reach the suitable size. No one can 



dry, particularly in Brunswick county, and the monster rattle- 

 snakes peculiar to that section have crawled all throusrh the 

 neighborhood. They have bitten and killed a white woman and 

 three negroes, and nave also killed scores of horses, mules and 

 cattle, as well as great numbers of dogs. The snates orawi into 

 or under houses, and cattle are now kept in pens to protect them. 

 Many persons, thorouebly frightened, have moved away from the 

 vicinity of Smlf.h's swamp, near Waocawan. Rattling can be 

 heard there at all times, and imoiense serpents are killed in the 

 roads, some over six feet long and three inches thick. Such a 

 plague of snakes was never before known in this State. 



Surely now, with such an excellent fipld for observation, 

 all vexed questions in this connection will be settled for- 

 ever. The rattlers will, I am sure, do all in their power to 

 afford every opportunity for an accurate test as to their 

 peculiar methods of doing business. Serpent. 



IK O'CLOCK TEA AT MR. JEWELL'a FROG PON 

 From a photograph. 



doubt that the frogs love their children, but it is not a 

 very self-sacrificing afi'ection. 



The frogs are very fond of birds, too. One day a spar- 

 ro w skimming along the surface of the pond passed close 

 to the nose of one of the old inhabitants. Quick as a flash 

 he opened his mouth and jumpedfromthe water, and the 

 bird disappeared. He had made a swallow of it. This 

 incident, which is fact (people watched the performance), 

 recalls the performance of a frog on the lawn at Arms- 

 mear, Mrs. Colt's home, some years ago. He grabbed and 

 swallowed a robin that hopped up close to him. Down 

 the bird went, feathers and all. At Mr. Jewell's some- 

 times when mice are very scarce, English sparrows are 

 substituted. The frogs take them unless the birds are 

 dead and cold. They have no more use for a dead bird 

 than for a dead mouse. 



If any kind-hearted housekeeper thinks feeding of live 

 mice to the hungry frogs is cruel, let her stop a moment 

 and reflect on several things. In the first place, she be- 

 lieves in destx'oying the mice as heartily as the frogs do. 

 In the second place, her way of doing it is to set a spring 

 trap that will catch the little fellows by the neck and 

 choke them slowly to death so that they suffer a long 

 time. The frog trap works instantaneously and is in the 

 line of nature. It is no more cruel than the whole pro- 

 cession of natural events, and, from the point of view of 

 the frog, is a kindly and welcome provision. 



D. 



The Linnaeau Society of New York. 



Regtjl^vr meetings of the society will be held at 8 

 P. M., at the American Museum of Natural History, 

 Eighth avenue and Seventy-seventh street: Oct. 5. — Pajjer 

 by Mr. Jonathan D wight, Jr., "Some Remarks on Kansas 

 Birds." Oct. 19,— Paper by Mr, L. S. Foster, "The Spring 

 Birds of the Vicinity of New York City." 



AETHtJK H. Howell, Sec'y. 



212 Madisok Stbbet, Brooklyn. 



A Snake Plagfue. 



Toronto, Sept. 21.— Editor Forest and Stream: I was 

 greatly interested in the information conveyed by the in- 

 closed cutting which is taken from the Toronto Mail of 

 the 2l8t inst., coming, as it did, while attention was still 

 to some extent taken up with the late "snaky" discus- 

 sion. 



Raleigh, N. C, Sept. 20.— The drought in the southeastern 

 part Qt the State has caused some of the swamps to become almost 



"Game Laws in Brief, ^' United States and Canada, 

 illustraLed, 25 cents. "Boole of the Qame Laws" {fvM 

 text), 50 cents. 



AN INTERVIEW WITH A PANTHER. 



Editor Forest and Strearn: 



As panther stories are in order, I will give you an ex- 

 tract from my diary about an interview that I had with 



one in the woods be- 

 tween Vancouver and 

 New Westminster, 

 B, C: 



Dec. 19, 1887, with 

 ■ my 10-bore Greener, I 

 was taking an outing 

 in that forest. From 

 the coast I struck an 

 old timber trail that 

 led me to a small clear- 

 ing, where there was a 

 deserted house with 

 weedy garden plot, 

 surrounded by several 

 acres of heavy fallen 

 timber, that lay as it 

 had fallen, the logs 

 piled across each other 

 mall directions. Near 

 the path and but a 

 short distance from 

 the house was a large 

 cedar stump at least 

 10ft. high, The tree 

 had been cut down 

 from a staging or plat- 

 form such as are com- 

 monly used by the 

 Pacific coast lumber- 

 men in felling large 

 timber. 



In the house I found 

 a small ladder, used to 

 go up to the sleeping 

 loft — this I used in 

 mounting to the top of 

 the stump, which gave 

 me a good view up and 

 down the trail and over 

 the fallen timber. The 

 day was warm and 

 everything was quiet 

 and still, and not a 

 living thing was in 

 sight. 



I stretched out there 

 in the sunshine and 

 amused my self by 

 making the adjacent woods ring by imitating a pig's 

 squeal. In a lew minutes I glanced around me and 

 saw standing on a log not over lOOyds. distant, a sight 

 that made me wish that I had taken my rifle instead of 

 my Grreener, for there, partly headed toward me, stood a 

 panther — or, as they are called in the mountains, a 

 mountain lion — gazing at me. There was but little of 

 the majesty of the lion about it, at it stood there, a long, 

 lank, lithesome, cruel, sneaking looking coward. A 

 long, slim neck, round head, big eyes, hollow-backed, 

 with belly hanging within a few inches of the log, high 

 hipped, a long tail curved downward with the end turned 

 upward, which was convulsively twitching, the only 

 sign of life about it. Its color, a dirty tawny yellowish 

 brown. A big sneak cat. 



We watched each other seemingly at least a quar- 

 ter of an hour, when, without taking its eyes from me, 

 it slowly reached down one forepaw to the log below 

 and gradually disappeared from view. After another 

 half hour's watching and seeing no further signs of it, I 

 left my perch and started back down the trail. There 

 was a fringe of thick bushes between the trail and the 

 fallen timber on the left; and at the right band was the 

 dense forest. I had not proceeded on my way over 

 lOOyds. before the panther sneaked out of the bushes into 

 the path about 75yds, in front of me, and there stopped 

 side on with head turned toward me, with its slouching 

 belly nearly touching the ground. It looked as one often 

 sees a cat look when it steals out from some gateway and 

 stands looking down the street ready to skulk away to 

 some other biding place. 



With gun in position I started toward it. Sinking its 

 belly down to the very ground it started across the trail. 

 I gave it a right and left, the two reports of my gun 

 nearly blending into one. The smoke hung for a moment 

 in the heavy atmosphere, hiding all in front of me. 

 When it lifted no panther was seen or heard. 



I reached the hotel at dusk with age renewed from my 

 outing, and with a good appetite for my dinner. Then 

 came regrets, "If I had only taken my rifle." Well, if I 

 had done so, I would have missed some rare sport earlier 

 in the day, and later on would have killed some big 

 game that would have prevented me from visiting the oi d 

 clearing, where I saw the "sneak cat" — the cat that has 

 no voice, excej)ting a growl and a short spiteful "yik," 

 notwithstanding the many reports about their terrific 

 screams, which are all myths. The sounds are made by 

 other beasts or owls, 3tanbtead, 



HXGHG,*.TE, Vt. 



I 



