Frog

“ A will-o'-the-wisp was dancing over the meadows, and a chorus of frogs was singing away with might and main,—the shrill piping of mother frog and the deep bass of father frog, with a host of aunts and cousins, all singing their merry spring song. ”

“ We have no music in our groves but that of the frogs, which set up such a shrill and perpetual chorus every evening, that we can scarce hear each other speak. The regular manner in which the bass and treble voices respond to each other is perfectly ludicrous, so that in the midst of my impatience I have caught myself laughing. Then we have every possible variety of note, from the piping squeak of the tree-frog, to the deep, guttural croak, almost roar, of the bull-frog. ”

“ Not even a bird was stirring as he sped over the cool, wet grass. The daylight had not yet crept through the thick leaves, and once he stumbled over a dead log and rolled headlong into a muddy hole. The only light he saw came from a frog who had filled himself with fireflies, and they now shone through his round stomach like a shaded lamp as he slept under a sheltering bush. ”

“ Though too wide by far
For one single frog, not another would hold.
VII.
But when did the heartless, disdainful, and flat
Live on, unrebuked by this world's tit for tat?
And why did our frog trust his fate to a rat? ”

“ If there is one sweetmeat sweeter than all others to a coon, it is a frog. It was not mere chance that Mux was born in the edge of the Bear Swamp, close to the wide marshes that ran out to the river. This was the great country of the frogs—the milk-and-honey country to the ring-tailed family in the hollow gum. But Mux had never tasted frog. He had not been weaned when I kidnapped him. One day, wishing to see if he knew what a frog was, I carelessly offered him a big spotted fellow that I had caught in the meadow. ”

“ A quick start, a thrust like lightning—then you would see him shake his frog savagely, beat it upon the nearest stone or root, glide to a tuft of grass, hide his catch cunningly, and go on unincumbered for the next stalk, his weather-vane swinging, swinging in the ceaseless search for frogs, or possible enemies. ”

“ The entire frog family is as protectively colored as this least member, the cricket-frog. They all carry fern-seed in their pockets and go invisible. Notice the wood-frog with his tan suit and black cheeks. He is a mere sound as he hops about over the brown leaves. I have had him jump out of the way of my feet and vanish while I stared hard at him. He lands with legs extended, purposely simulating the shape of the ragged, broken leaves, and offers, as the only clue for one's baffled eyes, the moist glisten as his body dissolves against the dead brown of the leaf-carpet. ”

“ Now in the well were some frogs, so the elder sister said: “Sister, do you see these frogs? The name of the Rajah you are about to marry is Dhuddoo, or Frog, and you think that he is a man, but he is, in reality, a frog.” ”

“ I was watching a monster frog emerge from his penthouse of ooze, and lift with some pride his brown spots and his bright golden throat from the matted green cake of dry weed, when a quick gleam shot through the fibres. ”

“ Frog and I now sat down to watch the result, and the time of waiting was long and tedious. After several weary days, however, the great fish lay over on its side and expired, and soon after there hopped from its mouth the sweetest little green frog you ever laid eyes on. Another and another followed, until twelve of them stood beside us; and then my wife exclaimed:
"'They are our children, the tadpoles! They have lost their tails and their legs have grown out, but they are our own little ones, nevertheless!' ”

“ In a few hours the tail drops off, and the frog, the real genuine frog, is complete! And one most wonderful thing, is this: the animal not only changes his form and habits, but his food also. While a tadpole, he fed on grass; while a frog, he lives entirely on animal food, as insects and worms. As he cannot find enough of them in the water, he goes forth to hunt them, and takes insects by surprise. ”

“ At length, after many consultations with her cap, the affair was settled, and at the end of the second year after her parting with the queen they all set out.
First walked her bodyguard of grasshoppers, followed by her maids of honour, who were those tiny green frogs you see in the fields, each one mounted on a snail, and seated on a velvet saddle. Next came the water-rats, dressed as pages, and lastly the frog herself, in a litter borne by eight toads, and made of tortoiseshell. ”

“ They will walk along the edge of small streams and pin down a jumping frog with their lightning-quick paws; and I have seen one, when a frog escaped it and jumped into the creek, jump after it and land like a stone from a catapult, splashing water for twenty feet. ”

“ I well remember that in my childhood I had a great dread of toads and frogs, and a relative, to whom I owe much for having directed my mind into the love of animated nature, took up a frog in her hand and made me look at the beautiful gold circle round its eyes, its curious webbed feet, its leaping power arising from the long hind legs ”

“ We are all well acquainted with the common frog, whose grander name is Rana temporaria. We see it—and it is to be feared some of us kill it—in our gardens, among strawberry-beds and damp vegetation. But, whereas frogs feed upon those slugs and insects which are in the habit of pasturing upon our plants, and are themselves indebted to us for not a grain of vegetable matter, we ought by all means to be grateful to them. ”

“ Another little frog spends its entire life in the leaf-formed cup of a bromelia, a plant somewhat similar in appearance to a small century plant, which grows on the branches of trees where its roots get a precarious foothold. During the rainy season this cup becomes filled with water. There the frog lays its eggs, which hatch as pollywogs.
Truly demonic are fantastic horned frogs of Brazil which devour other amphibians and small mammals. The largest of them do not hesitate to defy a human being in the mountain rain forests, their chief habitat. ”

“ Perhaps a big frog will push out from the grass and go in fat leaps down to the water—plop! and away he swims with his sarcastic nose up and his legs going like fury. The strange, very-little-boy motions of a frog in water is a thing to ponder over. There are small frogs also, every bit as interesting, thin-legged, round-bellied anatomies who try to jump two ways at once when they are observed, and are caught so easily that it is scarcely worth one's trouble to chase them at all. ”

“ So industrious are frogs in slug-hunting, that it would be quite worth while to introduce them as sub-gardeners upon our flower-beds. In catching insects, the frog suddenly darts out his tongue, which, at the hinder part, is loose, and covered with a gummy matter. The insect is caught, and the tongue returned with wonderful rapidity. The frog, when it is first hatched, has the constitution of a fish: it is purely aquatic; has a fish's heart, a fish's circulation, and a fish's gills. The tadpole swims as a fish does—by the movement, side-ways, of its tail. ”

“ The frog is next set down on a plantain leaf, the ritual already described with the squares, toddy, etc., is performed, the frog is wrapped up together with the various substances in the leaf, and buried at some spot where two or more roads meet, and which the victim is likely to pass. Should he cross the fateful spot, he will suddenly become conscious of a feeling in his foot, as though a thorn had pricked him. ”

“ Frogs lie in wait for them when in quest of water, which, in fact, is their principal occupation at the time they are rearing their young. And it is not only the frog that frequents ponds and streams that is thus injurious to them, but the bramble-frog as well, which will come to the hives even in search of them, and, crawling up to the entrance, breathe through the apertures; upon hearing which, a bee flies to the spot, and is snapped up in an instant. ”

“ I'm a frog in the fall and a frog when the frost
Spreads over the land, and the forests are gray.
I'm a frog keepin' house at a very small cost
In a dug-out I've built out of cat-tails and clay.
I'm a frog with a green overcoat and a voice
That tickles the woods, when the winter's no more.
The old folks are glad and children rejoice,
At the first tap o' thunder, I let out a roar.
I'm a frog living down in the lush of the swale ”

“ They grow into legs. Then the gills go inside and become lungs. The hind legs come next. The tail grows shorter, and the animal broader. One day the tad-pole is gone. The frog jumps out on a rock and catches an insect for dinner. He sits blinking in the sun as if he wonders how he did it. The frog is a land animal that grew from a water baby. It likes to live on the edge of a pond where it can dive and swim whenever it feels like it. ”

“ The frog's mouth, he tells, grows up for six months, and he lives for six months without eating, 'sustained, none but He whose name is Wonderful knows how.' He reverently admires the care taken of the frog by Providence, without drawing any more inference for his own conduct than if he were a modern physiologist. It is just this absolute unconsciousness which makes his love of the sport attractive. ”

“ She went to the edge of the pond every day and prayed that her husband might be forgiven. And one morning—it was the first day of the second year—the big frog suddenly began to swell and get bigger and bigger until he wasn't a frog any more, but a man. ”

“ The frog is a good example of an animal prophet. There is a green frog which has been studied in Germany, which will come out of the water when rainy weather or cold is approaching. Some observers have placed these frogs in a glass jar with a landing provided so that he can come out of the water when he wants to, and he is always observed high and dry above the water several hours in advance of a storm. ”

“ Finally, when a long-legged frog, panic-stricken at his approach, leaps with its cold body right into his face, he has, fortunately, recovered from his previous shock, and continues calmly on his way. ”

“ She thought, ‘What is the silly old Frog chattering about? He lives in the well, croaking with his mates, and he can’t be the companion of a human being.’
As soon as the Frog received her promise, he ducked his head under the water and disappeared. After a little while, back he came with the ball in his mouth, and threw it on to the grass beside her. ”

“ A very young frog—very young indeed, scarcely out of tails (that is to say, out of tadpolehood) —with a very great ambition and ordinary ability, set out one morning with the purpose of seeing the world, and by night-fall bringing back something to astonish the pool. ”

“ Such a frog, after rising from the bottom and finding his farther upward progress checked by the glass bell which has been inverted over him, will not persist in butting his nose against the obstacle until dead of suffocation, but will often re-descend and emerge from under its rim as if, not a definite mechanical propulsion upwards, but rather a conscious desire to reach the air by hook or crook were the main-spring of his activity. ”

“ During this process the frog maintains a calm, superior, self-satisfied expression, as if in this still hunt he not so much satisfied an appetite, as fulfilled a mission of ridding nature of superfluous insects. He seems to have no malice toward the insects; he is merely giving them an honorable burial, and saving them from the further perplexities of life. ”

“ But he is now a true frog, delicately mottled, agile in his movements, very clever in jumping and swimming—his tadpole tail entirely absorbed, and his whole system metamorphosed. If he interested us before, he is still more interesting now, for in the structure and economy of his frame Nature reveals phenomena typical of animal life in all its orders and gradations. ”

“ The frog has sometimes found a place in Christian symbolism as the most expressive image of the resurrection of the body, because frogs, like the serpents after their winter interment, emerge from their hiding-places and renew their youth by casting their slough. ”

“ His limbs were extremely delicate, and his eyes were as bright as diamonds. I carried him gently home, and ran with him in the greatest excitement to my mother, exclaiming, "O mamma! do look at this lovely little frog! It is n't human! It came right down to me out of the sky. I do believe it is an angel-frog!" ”

“ But the frog is a very sly reptile, and you must stay up very late indeed in order to be a match for him in craft, unless you dazzle his eyes with the light of a torch or lantern. Then he is a fool in the presence of that which is out of the order of his surroundings, and his amazement or curiosity paralyzes his muscles. ”

“ It is impossible to watch the horizontal motions of a frog in the water, as it is impelled by these muscles and its webbed feet, without being struck by the complete resemblance in this portion of its frame to human conformation, and the almost perfect identity of the movements of its lower extremities with those of a man making the same efforts in the same situation. ”

“ The feet of the hind legs are webbed and have five fingers or toes.
[Pg 225]
The frog has a backbone, but no ribs. As he is ribless he cannot expand and contract his chest in breathing, so that he must swallow what air he wants. In swallowing air he must close his mouth and take the air in only by the nostrils; therefore, oddly enough, if his mouth is forcibly kept open he may be smothered. [64] The frog’s breathing is partly through its skin, which gives off carbonic acid gas; and moisture is as needful to a frog’s skin as to the gills of a fish. ”