OF REPTILES, 
329 
The female toads deposit their spawn early in the 
spring, in the form of necklace-like chains or strings of 
beautifully transparent gluten, three or four feet in 
length, inclosing the ova in a double series throughout. 
These have the appearance of so many jet black glo- 
bules; they are, however, nothing more than the larvae, 
or tadpoles, lying in a globular form. These break from 
their confinement in about a fortnight, and afterwards 
undergo changes very similar to the tadpoles of the frog. 
They become complete about the beginning of autumn, 
when the young animals are frequently to be seen in 
immense multitudes. 
Frog. (PI. 54.) The common frog is known through- 
out Europe, being almost every where seen in moist 
situations, or wherever it can command a sufficient quan- 
tity of insects, worms, &c. on which it feeds. In colour 
it varies considerably, but its general tinge is olive-brown 
variegated on the upper parts of the body and limbs with 
irregular blackish spots; those on the limbs being mostly 
disposed in a transverse direction: beneath each eye is a 
longish mark or patch, reaching to the setting on of the 
fore legs, and which seems to form one of its principal 
distinctions. 
It is generally in the month of March that the frog 
deposits its ova or spawn, consisting of a large heap or 
clustered mass of gelatinous transparent eggs, in each of 
which is imbedded the embryo, or tadpole, in the form of 
a round black globule. The spawn commonly lies more 
than a month, or sometimes five weeks, before the young, 
or tadpoles, are hatched from it; but during this period, 
each egg gradually enlarges in size, and a few days be- 
fore the time of exclusion, the young animals may be 
perceived to move about in the surrounding gluten. 
The form of the frog is light and elegant, and its ap- 
pearance lively; the limbs finely calculated for the pecu- 
liar motions of the animal, and the hind feet strongly 
webbed, to assist its progress in the water, to which it 
occasionally retires during the frosts of winter, when it 
lies in a state of torpidity, either deeply plunged in the 
soft mud at the bottom of stagnant waters, or in the hoi* 
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