A SHORT CHAPTER ON FROGS.
In one of Steele's papers in the "Guardian" is the following passage: "I observe the sole reason alleged for the destruction of frogs, is because they are like toads. Yet amidst all the misfortunes of these unfriended creatures, it is some happiness that we have not yet taken a fancy to eat them; for should our countrymen refine upon the French never so little, it is not to be conceived to what unheard-of torments owls, cats, and frogs may be yet reserved."
That frogs constituted the chief diet of Frenchmen was, a few years ago, as popular and beloved an article of belief among British lads, as that one Englishman was equal to three of the said frog-consumers. More extended intercourse has, however, shown us that frogs do not constitute the entire food of our Gallic neighbors, and taught them that we do not all wear top-boots, and subsist solely on beef-steaks. As, however, frogs do form a dainty dish, I will give what the Yankees term a "few notions consarning them and their fixings."
Happening to be in Germany in 1846, I was desirous of getting some insight into the manners and customs of these inhabitants of the ponds, and, after much observation, arrived at the same conclusion concerning them as the master of one of Her Majesty's ships did respecting the subjects of the Imaun of Muscat. Being compelled to record categorically a reply to the inquiry, "What are the manners and customs of the inhabitants?" he wrote, "Manners they have none, and their customs, are very beastly." So of these frogs, say I.
My knowledge of their vicinity was based upon auricular confession. Night after night the most infernal din of croaking bore testimony to the fact that they were unburdening their consciences, and I determined to try if I could not unburden their bodies of their batrachian souls altogether. However, before I detail my proceedings, I have a word to say with reference to their croaking.
Horace bears expressive testimony to the disgust he felt at it, when, after a heavy supper to help him on his way to Brundusium, he exclaimed
——"Mali culices, ranæque palustres Avertunt somnos."
So loud and continuous is their song, especially in the breeding season, that in the former good old times of France, when nobles were nobles, and lived in their magnificent chateaus scattered throughout the country, the peasants were employed during the whole night in beating the ponds within ear-shot of the chateaus, with boughs of trees, to prevent the slumbers of the lords and ladies being broken by their paludine neighbors. This croaking is produced by the air being driven from the lungs into the puffed-out cavity of the mouth, or into certain guttural sacculi, which are developed very largely in the males. They can produce this noise under water as well as on land.
In the male frog there are fissures at the corners of the mouth for admitting the external protrusion of the vocal sacculi. These sacculi they invariably protrude in their struggles to escape when held by the hind legs. Under these circumstances they are also capable of uttering a peculiar shrill cry of distress, differing completely from their ordinary croak.