In process of time the egg is hatched, and out comes a queer little creature, with a big head and a flat slender tail, called generally a tadpole, and in some places a pollywog. In this state of life the young creature is simply a fish, with fish-like bones, and breathing through gills, after the manner of fish.
Being very voracious, it grows rapidly: little legs begin to show themselves; and, at the proper season, the gills are laid aside, the tail vanishes, and the little frog is then in its usual form. The circulation of the blood can be well exhibited by means of a microscope, if a tadpole be laid on the stage so as to bring its tail within the focus, care being taken to keep that member well wetted.
At the time when the tail is laid aside, the young frog is very small, and in this state is generally found to swarm immediately after rain. The frog-showers, of which we so often hear, are probably occasioned, not by the actual descent of frogs from the clouds, but from the genial influence of the moisture on the young frogs who have already been hatched and developed, and who have been biding their time before they dared to venture abroad.
Still I would not venture to say that frogs have not descended in the rain, for there are several accredited accounts of fish-showers, both being probably caused in the same way.
For a drawing of the Tadpole, see [page 85].
It is not often that frogs are found far from water, for they are the thirstiest of beings, and drink with every pore of their body. If, for example, a wrinkled and emaciated frog is placed in confinement, and plentifully supplied with water, it absorbs the grateful moisture like a sponge, and plumps up in a wonderfully short time.
From the same cause, it parts with its moisture with equal rapidity; and if a dead frog be laid in the open air on a dry day it speedily shrinks up, and becomes hard as horn. The skin and lungs co-operate in respiration, but only when the former is moist. So, in order to secure that object, the frog is furnished with an internal tank, so to speak, which receives the superabundance of the absorbed water, and keeps it pure until it is required for use. So great is the power of absorption that a frog has been known to absorb a quantity of water equal to itself in weight, merely through the pores of the abdominal surface, and this in a very short time.
In England we don’t eat frogs, for what reason I know not. One species of frog is very excellent food, and it is but natural to suppose that another may be so, i.e., if properly cooked. However, the old belief still keeps its ground, that the French are the natural foes of the English, and we ought to hate them, because they “eat frogs and are saddled with wooden shoes”. Still I cannot but think that to eat frogs is better than to starve or to steal, and that to wear wooden shoes is not more humiliating than to wear no shoes at all.
After its fashion, the frog sings, though it is but after a fashion. We call the frog’s song a croak: I wonder what name the frog would give to our singing. When the frog sings, it generally sinks itself under water, with the exception of its head, opens its mouth, lays its lower jaw flat on the water, and sets to work as if it meant to make the best of its time. Even in England we have fine specimens of frog concerts, though not to such an extent as in many other countries. In France the frogs make such a croaking, that we hardly wonder at the rather tyrannous conduct of the noblesse just before the great Revolution. When the nobility or courtiers spent any time in the country, the miserable peasants were forced to flog the water all night, on purpose to keep the frogs quiet, for their croaking was so noisy that the fastidious senses of the fashionables could not be lulled to sleep.
Now-a-days, the people don’t seem to be satisfied with the country croakings, but they import the horrid sounds into the city by means of a toy called a “grenouille,” which, when set in motion, makes a croaking sound just like that of a frog.