Leapfrog

“ To Frobisher's pêtit dîner the same evening of that eventful day ostensibly to meet the Shan of Koordstan, Lefroy came large and flamboyant, with a vivid riband across his dazzling expanse of shirt and a jewelled collar under his tie. There was an extra gloss on his black moustache, his swagger was a little more pronounced than usual. He looked like what he was—a strong man weighed down by not too many scruples. ”

“ Frobisher signed to Hafid to throw back the gates. Lefroy was on his feet by this time. He breathed like one who has run fast and far. Manfred followed him with the air of a man who is utterly without hope or expectation.
"There!" Frobisher cried with a flourish of his hand. "What is that you see beyond the third tier of ropes? Ah, my beauty, here comes another lover for you!"
Lefroy's black eyes were turned up towards the high dome of the orchid-house. Other tangled ropes and loops of blossoms met his gaze and held it as he glanced in the direction indicated by Frobisher. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A big frog from the neighbour pool, unaware that there had been any intrusion here, came swimming up, on some errand of private urgency, and made directly for the log. The next instant, before he had any inkling of the imminence of doom, the raccoon's forepaw shot out like a flash. It was a wide-spread, flexible paw, like a little, black, lean hand, strong and delicate, the fingers tipped with formidable claws. It caught the swimming frog under the belly, swept him from the water, and threw him far up on to the shore. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The frogs are caught without bait, all the tackle used being a rod or pole cut in the woods, to which is fastened a short and stout line. On the end of the line is fastened a broad stout hook. When a frog is discovered, the "froggist" drops the hook under the jaw of the frog, and with a quick jerk Mr. Frog flies up into the air, and is taken from off the hook, and placed in a bag. The frogs think the hook is alive, and snatch at it eagerly. Sometimes a frog, when the hook tickles his nose or passes over one of his ears, will lose his temper, and make a terrible lunge at it. ”

“ The water grew muddier and muddier, until even Grandfather Frog began to look annoyed. Billy Mink and Little Joe Otter started off up the Laughing Brook, where the water was clear. The Merry Little Breezes danced away across the Green Meadows to play with Johnny Chuck, and Grandfather Frog settled himself comfortably on his big green lily-pad to dream of the days when the world was young and the frogs ruled the world. ”

“ It breathes in the water by means of gills just like a fish. It is only when the tadpole grows four legs, loses its tail, closes up the gills at its throat, and begins to breathe by the mouth and lungs instead, that it becomes a real frog. There can be no doubt whatever that the tadpole is very much more like the fish in all the most important particulars than the frog. Between the frog-egg and the frog itself we have a stage of development in each individual case of which we might almost say that the young frog has first to turn into a fish before it can become a frog. ”

“ But Megaleep the Wanderer makes no such provision he depends upon Mother Nature to take care of him. In summer he is brown, like the great tree trunks among which he moves unseen. Then the frog of his foot expands and grows spongy, so that he can cling to the mountain-side like a goat, or move silently over the dead leaves. In winter he becomes a soft gray, the better to fade into a snowstorm, or to stand concealed in plain sight on the edges of the gray, desolate barrens that he loves. Then the frog of his foot arches up out of the way ”

“ It is found in numbers in the early part of the rainy season, at which time males were heard calling from bushes and trees along ditches and temporary ponds. The call is a loud nasal "waank-waank-waank." One individual that was emitting a long and unusually [Pg 47] high-pitched call was found to have one hind limb engulfed by a Leptodeira maculata.
When active at night these frogs usually are pale tan to reddish brown above with dark brown markings. ”

“ When it drops to the ground it is scarcely discernible from the dry vegetation about it. The wood-frog maintains the moisture of its skin by hiding in damp moss or in decayed logs, and in little hollows in the ground. It avoids the sunshine, and keeps close to the earth.
The tree-frog is another curious frog. Smaller than its cousins, it is dressed in bright green, spotted with black, and has a membrane stretched between its toes, which gives its feet a broad, flat surface, and helps to sustain it as it leaps from branch to branch, somewhat in the fashion of a flying squirrel. ”

“ While the common frog represents the aquatic Ranidæ, his cousin, the wood-frog, represents a branch of the widely distributed family which prefers dry dwellings, except in the breeding season, when the eggs must be deposited in water. The wood-frog is smaller than the bull-frog, and is dressed in olive-green and shades of brown, like the colors of dead leaves and dry twigs. There is a large black patch on the side of the head around the big ear-drum. The wood-frog takes such enormous leaps that it is very difficult to catch. It is shy, and makes a prodigious jump at the first hint of danger. ”

“ When the larvæ are developed the mass becomes slimy and the tadpoles swim about it, and when a heavy rain falls they are washed into pools of water lying at the bases of the trees. The foam is probably produced as it is in culinary operations, by air being entangled in it by a beating that the Frog gives the jelly with its feet. The inclosed air may well serve in respiration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This large tree frog has been found only in the lowlands below elevation of about 1000 meters, usually in arid tropical scrub forest. Calling males were heard on rainy nights throughout the rainy season; in nearly every instance both males and females were found in low trees and bushes. On summer nights when there had been no rain, adults were found sitting on bushes in the scrub forest. ”

“ The principal trouble seems to be the difficulty of obtaining natural food in sufficient quantities to prevent the old frogs from devouring their young, which they will do on all occasions. Again, the young frog, from the tadpole stage up to the perfect frog, is surrounded by enemies night and day—aquatic birds, turtles, lizards, snakes, leeches, insects, fish, water-rats, and, worst of all, his own relations. ”

“ The Germans call them laub-frosch, or leaf-frog; they are most difficult things to find, on account of their color so much resembling the leaves on which they live. I have frequently heard one singing in a small bush, and though I have searched carefully, have not been able to find him: the only way is to remain quite quiet till he again begins his song. After much ambush-work, at length I collected a dozen frogs and put them in a bottle. I started at night on my homeward journey by the diligence, and I put the bottle containing the frogs into the pocket inside the diligence. ”

“ All our frogs lay their eggs in water in rounded masses, not in strings, as do the toads, usually attached to some submerged stick or plant stem. The tadpoles, light in color, are very voracious, and feed on every sort of flesh that they can bite off and chew with their horny jaws. On the approach of winter the frogs—except the wood frog, which hibernates in the loam of the forest, or in some rotten stump—sink into the mud of the pond or marsh where they live, and pass the cold months in torpidity. ”

“ They have laid their eggs in the warming waters and gone up into the woods. Hitched to a twig a foot beneath the surface I found a jelly-like mass as big as my two fists, which contained a{191} thousand or so of the eggs of the green frog,—Rana clamitans,—and no doubt those of the hylas and wood frogs were to be found nearby. The new-moon cove is a famous frog rendezvous, and a month from now the night there will be clamorous with the cries of many species. You would never believe there were so many varieties till you begin to hunt them by ear. ”

“ Doesn't it seem strange that when the ducks were so happy the frogs were so miserable? Now the frogs were happier than they had ever been before, and the poor ducks were somewhere in the woods sighing and calling over and over again for their lost babies. Some folks just can't live happily together.
Mrs. House Frog came hurrying through the deep woods. Long before she reached the pond she had heard the singing of the frogs. She knew this must be the place the Lark had told her about. She panted a little as the frogs all crowded about her. ”

“ We have not observed opportunistic mid-summer chorusing as we and others [19] , [63] have for R. sphenocephala, but we have observed occasional second breeding periods with the onset of cooler autumn temperatures and precipitation (late August through November) .
Individuals may exhibit a limited degree of color change around a general base color that can vary widely between frogs, from light green to dark brown. Holmes [64] noted that leopard frogs (sensu lato) tend towards darker nocturnal shading and brighter, more vivid diurnal colors (as a putative mode of camouflage) . ”

“ In the fall they leave their hunting grounds in the fields and woods and take refuge near swamps and ponds, passing the winter in the banks of rivers or the mud in the bottoms of ponds, whence they come out in the spring, when the process of reproduction begins. The frog is not sexually mature till it is four or five years old. The coupling process lasts from three to thirty days. Between its spring wakening and spawning the frog eats nothing except, perhaps, its own skin, which it moults periodically. After spawning, frogs leave the water and go to the fields and woods. ”

“ These large voracious frogs lining the banks are quick to lunge at any moving object, and must take heavy toll of the much smaller ant-eating frogs that have to pass through their ranks to reach the water. The newly metamorphosed young often are forced to remain at a pond's edge for many days, or even for weeks, by drought and they must be subject to especially heavy predation by ranid frogs. ”

“ The Golden Tree Frogs wore coats of grass green thickly covered with shiny yellow embroidery that looked like the purest beaten gold. Several of the mother frogs gasped as they saw their beautiful clothes. They went near and touched them gently. They had not known there were such handsome frogs in the world as these. The Golden Tree Frogs were much pleased to be so admired. They believed no other frogs could dress so well.
"A man came to our home and captured us and brought us to this country," said Mr. Golden Tree Frog. "He also brought the Blue Tree Frogs from South America. ”

“ She held her broad browed head erect, the bristles pointed like needles from her blood-streaked muzzle, grit and pluck could be traced in her every movement, and, in her eyes, universal defiance.
Down the dark watercourse she went, twisting her lithe chestnut body S-wise in and out of the coarse grass-clumps. A frog leaped before her. In a flash she had flung herself upon it, her white teeth clicked together in its brain, and she sauntered slowly out of sight, bearing her latest victim in her mouth. It was hideous. To eat vegetables was natural enough, but to eat living, quivering flesh! ”

“ It all depends on the Lark. If he fails to invite all the frogs to the Frog Pond, they will not come. But I do not believe that he will fail. He is too true a friend of the frogs to disappoint them now when so much depends on him. ”

“ He might be seen stepping daintily in some shallow near the shore where there were plenty of lily pads and water grasses. He was very cautious in his movements so as not to scare his victim. He would stand for five minutes on one leg, if he suddenly discovered a frog that he was afraid of scaring, then his long neck would suddenly shoot out. When he drew up his head, a frog would be seen kicking in his bill. He would then hammer the frog on a rock, or spear him with his bill, until life had left him, when he would hide the catch upon the bank and return to his sport. ”