298 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Aug. 25, 1906. 
Frog Hunting in Pennsylvania. 
Not long ago, a lady who has the reputation 
of knowing something of human nature, ob¬ 
served that mankind is divided into two classes, 
those who like frogs and those who don’t. To 
prove her statement, which possessed an epi¬ 
grammatic flavor, she asked every one in the 
room in which she happened to be at the time, 
and sure enough the company was divided in 
the manner she declared. It is true that an¬ 
other woman who heard of the event, and who 
was envious of her sister's reputation as an 
epigrammatist, declared that the answers proved 
nothing, since, on most questions the world 
might be divided into two factions, and besides 
there was, most likely, in the company some 
who probably had never tasted frogs, and who 
therefore took sides either from hearsay or 
prejudice. Be that as it may, it is a fact beyond 
dispute, that frog legs find a ready sale in the 
markets of the United States. Moreover, the 
demand is steady enough to keep many thous¬ 
and boys and men busy for some months in 
the year hunting and slaying the croaking deni¬ 
zens of the ponds and stagnant pools. 
Some people are mean enough to assert that 
America, like England, wants to “hog” every¬ 
thing in sight, and these may find an illustration 
in that it has taken from France the right to 
be called a nation of frog eaters. For the last 
ten years at least, the United States has been 
consuming more frog legs every six months than 
France in a year. At least, that is the assertion. 
Frog hunting and frog eating is certainly ex¬ 
tensive enough to have caused consternation 
among many frog hunters and joy among frog 
eaters generally, when, two years ago, the Penn¬ 
sylvania Legislature passed an act protecting 
the amphibian. It is true that when the bill was 
introduced, the members of the Legislature 
treated it as a huge joke, and laughed heartily 
during its passage through the two chambers; 
but they voted for it solidly, and the Governor 
signed it. There were many semi-humorous re¬ 
marks among the solons because the bill eman¬ 
ated from Berks county, one of the bulwarks 
of the “Pennsylvania Dutch”; but the bill be¬ 
came a law. nevertheless. Curiously enough, ad¬ 
mirable as was the intent of the measure, the 
humorists had some color for their levity, al¬ 
though they did not evidently know it at the 
time, for the framers managed, after the alleged 
fashion of a German wrestling with the English 
language, to so construct the act, as to get its 
meaning “hindforemost”. 
The author of the act clearly meant that the 
open season for killing frogs shall begin on the 
first day of July and end on the first day of No¬ 
vember; but if a strict grammatical construction 
be followed, it is lawful under the act to kill 
frogs at any time of the year, excepting from 
July 1 to Nov. 1. In consequence, the Depart¬ 
ment of Fisheries, with the shameless conniv¬ 
ance and support of high legal luminaries, has 
been moved to borrow a leaf from the states¬ 
man who asked, “What is the Constitution 
among friends?” and adopt as a motto, “What 
is grammar to those who wish to protect frogs?” 
In other words, to support the evident design 
of the framer of the act and ignore that axiom 
of the law which declares that a “statute must 
be construed literally.” 
So the frogs croak in comparative safety dur¬ 
ing the balmy days of April; during their love- 
making and during their first family raising. 
Not that they are devoted and tender guardians 
of their progeny, the greatest solicitude of each 
seems to be lest his neighbor eat more of his 
own polywogs than he does himself; but it 
sounds better to attribute to him virtues which 
he don't possess, than to picture him as he 
really is, a cannibal of unblushing and winking 
effrontery. 
On July 1 boys and men begin the quest of 
frogs with nearly the same enthusiasm that the 
angler does for trout on the opening day of 
the season. Only in some respects, the en¬ 
thusiasm of the frog hunter is usually unlike that 
of the trout fisher, founded not on one, but on 
two sentiments; the craving for both sport and 
coin. The frog hunter in Pennsylvania has an 
advantage over the trout fisher. He can, at 
the close of his outing, sell the results of his 
sport, while under the law the trout fisher must 
either eat his catch or give it away to his friends, 
neither of which is always entirely satisfactory 
when he is hard up, or is tempted by the silver 
of a man with a mouth for trout but with no 
ability to catch them. 
There are no legally prohibited devices for 
the capture of frogs. Anything is etiquette 
which will accomplish its object. Bare hands, 
a stone, a club, a hook and line, a gun, a gig or 
spear, or a trap, all these or anything else short 
of dynamite are permissible, and any or all of 
them are likely to be used as occasion arises. 
Much is heard of the eagerness with which a 
frog will seize a hook dangled in front of him 
when the hook has attached thereto a piece 
of red flannel; but a piece of red flannel as a 
bait for bullfrogs is what the artificial fly is 
for trout on a well whipped stream. Hence 
there are other methods in greater favor among 
those who go out after quantity in lieu of sport 
pure and simple, although it is doubtful if a 
frog hunter goes out often, without a piece of 
red flannel in his pocket. A’ hook with a piece 
of flannel attached is> mostj affected by the small 
boy, when he don’t use lli's hands or his hat or 
a stone or a club. It is the device which he 
most vividly recalls on arriving at manhood 
and the after days, when he may safely lie about 
his early prowess to his, children without his 
veracity being openly challenged. 
The favorite device of the caterer for the mar¬ 
ket is a spear made like a fish gig, only smaller, 
and the best time is night. Daylight quests may 
yield good results, but usually not as good as 
at night. Besides, there is then more attrac¬ 
tiveness about the sport. The stillness of the 
darkness, the heaviness of the night shadows, the 
gloom of the waters, the flare of the gig lights 
appeal to the average healthy man or boy who 
goes hunting for frogs much more strongly 
than the sunlight, the hum of human and animal 
life or vistas of scenery. 
Still a frog js a frog both by night and by day. 
He is as good to eat when caught in daylight 
as in the darkness. His legs have a distinct 
marketable value, and hungry stomachs and 
appreciative palates long for them. So from 
the first of July until after the first of November, 
both in daylight and darkness, the frog leads as 
strenuous an existence as even President Roose¬ 
velt could desire. 
When frogs are plentiful and the hunter 
skilled, the latter may, by the use of a gig or 
spear, be able from the falling of darkness to 
midnight to capture enough “bullies” to bring 
him in a “daddy” dollar, perhaps another to 
keep it company. 
A throw or cast net and a scoop net with a 
long handle are also pet methods with many, 
and both are very effective at times. Only the 
man who uses the first-named in Pennsylvania 
must of necessity be wary of when or how he 
uses it, or who is around at the time. There is 
no law against catching bullfrogs with a cast 
or throw net; but the fishery authorities have a 
strong and unyielding antipathy to the device, 
and should a warden happen along, the user 
might and probably would be driven to his wits’ 
end and exhaust all his resources to explain 
and prove that he was only catching frogs with 
it. 
There is as much fun in catching frogs with a 
scoop net as there is in catching crabs with 
the same device, and it requires quite as much 
expertness and agilffy, if indeed it does not re¬ 
quire more. It is not as easy as it looks, for 
generally there are grasses, lilypads, and logs to 
bring the user to confusion. But there are men 
who will employ no other method, and who be¬ 
come so expert that their bag will average as 
heavy as that of the man who sticks to the gig 
or spear. Obviously a scoop net is only at its 
best during the day time and obviously, where- 
ever possible it is more desirable than the gig 
or spear, because the frog is not mutilated and 
is therefore easier to skin. 
Just as some people will only use a scoop net, 
so there are others who will employ only a 
floberc rifle. A marksman will often secure a 
good!} number; but of all the methods it is the 
most expensive on account of the cost of the 
cartridges. It is not so much the market men 
who use the flobert as the person who desires 
a mess of frogs for his own consumption and to 
exhibit his skill as a marksman. Young men 
and boys are oftenest seen with the rifle, and it 
must be said that it is this class who seems to 
get the most enjoyment out of their occupation, 
especially when there is some one looking on 
and the mark is hit. 
There are three species of frogs more or less 
numerous in Pennsylvania. These are the 
leopard, the green and the common bullfrog. 
The last-named is preferred by the market hunt¬ 
er because of its great size. It is the “bloody 
bull” of boyhood days, the frog which utters 
such a loud booming sound. It is the species 
which soothes the nature lover to sleep at night 
by his resonant notes and arouses fury in the 
savage breast of the city man who don’t care 
a hang for nature, but who does demand quiet¬ 
ness when he goes to bed in the country. 
The common frog is not only huge in length 
and girth, but he has great sturdy legs on which 
there is much meat. The green frog is pre¬ 
ferred by those who kill for their own eating, 
and by the real epicures in frog flesh. The green 
fnog is much smaller than the common, its legs 
are much slimmer and with less flesh, but is 
much more delicate and delicious. The green 
frog is the diamond back turtle among frogs. 
It is the tidbit of the species, the sweetbreads, 
so' to speak. Alas! alas! however, people do 
not always eat green frogs when they think 
they do. Just as like as not they are eating 
the leopard frog, and don’t know the difference. 
Perhaps if some of them knew at the time, they 
would be in wild paroxysms of terror, because 
among some there is a superstition that the 
leopard frog is'poisonous as food. It isn’t, and 
a good thing it is not, otherwise there would be 
hundreds lying in their graves, for the market 
hunter, to the last man, will kill and skin and 
sell a leopard frog as quickly as he will any 
other kind. It is sad, but true, that after the 
skin of a leopard frog has been stripped from 
his body and legs, the skinner believes, with the 
great and mighty Franklin, that “all cats are 
gray in the dark.” W. E. Meehan. 
Newfoundland Notes. 
Reports from the various rivers tend to. prove 
that salmon, grilse and sea trout are improving 
in weight and number. From all parts of the 
island come wonderful tales of fish landed and 
lost. 
• We have had several distinguished visitors this 
season. Earl Grey, Governor General of Can¬ 
ada; Countess Grey, Lady Sybil, Lord Howick, 
Capt. Trotter, Col. B. Rhodes, Capt. Moore, Col. 
S. Lards, Mayor 1 . Hogan, Hon. Redfield Proc¬ 
tor, Vermont; C. H. Parsons, clerk of the Dis¬ 
trict Court, and president .of the Board of Aider- 
men, Gloucester; Mr. Mott, Chicago; Mr. and 
Mrs. McCullough, New York; and so on, and 
hundreds of other ladies and gentlemen not so 
well known to the average reader. 
Flere are some random * cuttings from the 
various reports that have come in: 
Saturday Lady Sybil Grey got three salmon 
and four grilse, and Lord Howick one salmon 
and six grilse. Their total catch to Saturday 
was fifty fish, troiit, grilse and salmon, weighing 
280 pounds, the salmon averaging over ten 
pounds. Next day they fished at Harry’s Brook 
and had good sport. Lady Sybil landed a n l / 2 
pound salmon after a fight lasting eighty-five 
minutes. 
His Excellency, Sir William McGregor, Gov- 
ernor of the island, accompanied by Mr. Willie 
B. Reid, were fishing in Glenwood territory and 
reported for 300 trout and one salmon. They 
fished earlier at North Branch and the Governor 
captured one fish 17L2 pounds weight besides a 
number of smaller size. His Excellency 
thoroughly enjoyed his trip. 
Sir William besides being an ardent angler, 
is also one of the most accomplished Governors 
we ever had. He has high degrees in medicine 
and surgery; he is an excellent linguist. One of 
the first tasks he set himself on assuming office 
