FROG. 
17 
Zoology, as Dr. Shaw has paid great attention to 
this subject, and has detailed the particulars in his 
usual clear and satisfactory manner. 
“ 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 tad- 
pole, in form of a round black globule. The spawn 
commonly lies more than a month*, or sometimes 
five weeks, before the larvae or tadpoles are hatched 
from it ; and during this period each egg gradually 
enlarges in size, and a few daj^s before the time of 
exclusion, the young animals may be perceived to 
move about in the surrounding gluten. When first 
hatched they feed on the remains of the gluten in 
which they were imbedded ; and in the space of a 
few days, if narrowly examined, they will be found 
to be furnished on each side the head with a pair 
of ramified branchiae, or temporary organs, which 
again disappear after a certain space. These tadpoles 
are so perfectly unlike the animals in their complete 
state, that a person inconversant in natural history 
would hardly suppose them to bear any relationship 
to the frog ; since, on a general view, they appear to 
consist merely of head and tail ; the former large, 
black, and roundish ; the latter slender, and bor- 
dered with a very broad transparent finny margin. 
Their motions are extremely lively, and they are 
often seen in such vast numbers as to blacken the 
* This time varies considerably, according to the heat of the 
weather and othet circumstances. 
VOL. II. C 
