FROG. 
521 
wrapped up and exposed to the fire, they will regain 
their natural activity ; but if suffered to freeze again, 
they can never more be restored to life. 
Frogs are so very tenacious of life, that they will 
for a time survive the most cruel injuries, and have 
even been known to move about as usual for some 
time after the body has been laid open and the 
bowels removed. The barbarous trick which school- 
boys practise of skinning frogs, does not seem for 
some hours to abate their activity ; and their life 
and motion are said to continue even after they 
have lost the whole of their circulating fluids. 
We shall now proceed to notice what is deserving 
of remark in the other species ; and the first that 
occurs is the Rana esculent o , or edible frog, which 
is nearly allied to the former, though it may be di- 
stinguished by the high protuberance in the middle 
of the back, as well as by the size, which is consi- 
derably larger than the common sort. These loath- 
some creatures are an article of traffic in other coun- 
tries, though the stomach of an Englishman will 
not endure the food. In the Paris markets Mr. 
Pennant saw whole hampers full, which the venders 
were preparing for the table, by skinning and cut- 
ting off the fore parts, the loins and legs only being 
kept. Dr. Townson also in his Travels assures us that 
thirty or forty thousand at a time are brought from 
the country to Vienna, and sold to the dealers, 
who preserve them in large holes four or five feet 
deep, dug in the ground, covering the mouth with 
a board, or, when the weather is severe, with straw; 
