Show AB amx b FV 0 C 4 01 k A ja a a re preparing frog legs for epicures Epi cures FIror ared bv Nat national lonal geographic soc hoc gt n D 0 C service togs once famous only for their F FOGS hind bind less legs but whose skins now make book covers and fine glue annually add more than 13 to the industrial census figures of louisiana frog raising and the col clestion of frogs from streams ponds and swamps are therefore becoming important acta activities aties it requires from four to file fie years for the frog whose legs are edible to reach adult size when the warm spring sun tempers the water in our ponds it Is mating time for frogs A female frog may lay as many as 1 40 eggs the eggs are deposited in small masses on water plants or on sticks or leaves lying in shallow water an egg consists of the yolk the round black center and the vl telline envelope the surrounding transparent membrane which begins to absorb water as soon as the egg Is laid and thus immediately swells to be several times its original size but already danger besets the germ of life growing there A gray fungus or mold may penetrate the envelope sprout upon the yolk and thus cut off the life of the little frog before it has hag v bell ell begun but it if fate Is kind and c conditions ons are fao favorable rable the central yolk at first a single cell be begins mins at once to grow dividing into two cells these into four these into eight and so on in the typical way under favorable conditions the tadpole hatches on the fourth day at first it Is a minute flattened yellowish object with conspicuous branching filaments its gills at one end and it a coarse appendage the tall at the other the little creature at this stage can barely wriggle away from its castoff cast off olt envelope to squirm upward to the surface of the water where it instinctively seeks the shelter of foliage and of the shallow water for at this age it easily becomes the prey of small fish and other ever hungry enemies development of tadpole in a few days when its mouth parts have begun to develop it nibbles the scum of green algae which forms a dense mat over every submerged stone or pebble in the stagnant agnant at pond the mouth of the tadpole Is not at all like that of the adult frog A sharply hooked beak suggesting that of a parrot but almost microscopic in size adorns the front of the tadpoles head and Is useful as a means of scraping and tearing at the minute water plants and animals which it takes for food at this stage tadpoles atre scavengers and fortunate are they to find the crumbs that fall fr from the rich ofil mans table in the form 0 of fragments of fish or other food I 1 left eft by larger and allore more careless banque in natures storehouse this rich fare fattens the tadpoles bad body y to ridiculous rotundity nis ills tiny lidless eyes stare solemn solemnly lyu upward nt at the water surface to which he must now rush every few moments for a of air as his gills are be beginning inning to be absorbed and he has had since to depend largely on ills his two nostrils equipped with valves to keep them closed and watertight water tight during his submarine excursion ing augmented by a or breathing pore on the left sido side of his body his tan tall has developed to a thing of surprising strength and pliability for on its power alone his safety depends in ID the increasingly bitter struggle to escape ills his countless enemies before the tadpole Is many weeks old a pair of growths sprouts near the base of the tall and shortly these elongate into a pair of hind legs equipped with five toes which closely resemble those of the adult at this stage a marvelous power of regeneration may take place for if a toe or even a leg Is nipped off another one will grow in the place an exact duplicate of the one lost after metamorphosis Is complete this re gener atlie atle power ceases to function and a unit limb once lost Is 19 not comes out of the water some days after the legs appear the right arm comes out now the file little tadpole stays near the top of the file wilter water nearly all the time airi and seems acry cry uncomfortable and no wonder ills his left arm aria Is developing just whore here the file breath breathing a g pore Is located As soon as it bursts through his troubles are lessened for now lie he car can hop 1101 out on the bank in true frog fashion and breathe the air freely for as we hay have seen his nostrils have been function 1 ing for some time as air breathing organ with the formation of his legs his head structure has likewise changed the scraping black beak gave place to the wide mouth characteristic of the adult frog the staring eyes acquired lids and nictitating membrane a tympanum appeared a definite color pattern showed on the skin and some glandular cells arranged themselves la in characteristic roughened areas all over the back only the tall remains to tell ot of his former aquatic habits day by day it too Is absorbed into the body just as were the gills in the very early stages until at last our little frog Is completely metamorphosed and can go freely on shore with his brothers to catch flies among the plants bordering his ancestral pool it is now the end of july and tor for the next two or three months his only occupation Is eating and preventing himself from being eaten enough to keep him busy and on the alert every I 1 instant at the approach of the sharp autumn weather he is about halt bal f an 1 inch ll 11 in k nin length and half grown A while vla le h he lia has s no voice as yet the mating call of his elders may occasionally be heard in the pool as late as september for frogs are active over a long period of the year and the breeding season may be said sai d to last from april to september reaching a peak at several different times as warm weather and heavy rainfall favor it at the onset of winter everything Is silent but with sleep not death near the borders of the pond buried under logs and stones in the mud the little frogs haie begun began hibernation for the winter A wise provision of nature slows down their life processes to suit them to this complete inactivity and apparent inanition many species are known while there are about two thousand species of tailless amphibians we lack a corresponding number of common names for them we must perforce call everything by the name of frog or toad although the several families grouped together as toads for instance may be as different structurally and in habits from the true toad as the lion is different from the camel although both are mammals while most tailless amphibians deposit their eggs in water with thel the tailed aquatic tadpole stage intervene ing between egg and adult there Is one tropical american genus thero ln in which the young fros frog completes his bis metamorphosis entirely inside the egg capsule and when it Is finally time for him to sally forth he comes out and hops away among the tree tops with no tail to impede him other tropical frogs lay their eggs in the rain filled axils aeils of giant palm J leaves perhaps a hundred feet high in the air here it Is truly a case of rock a bye baby on the tree top toil to the little frog baby in his wind rocked cradle of rata rainwater he may have strange bedfellows bed fellows such a bromeliad bro mellad reservoir from jamaica yielded a young and tadpoles belonging to two species of frogs some small crabs grasshoppers arboreal cockroaches a tarantula and some earthworms earthworm D S J which 11 hiie e high in the air in the quart or two of soil and water which collects in the junctions of leaves with stem Sho showers iNers of frogs and toads have been mentioned ln in the literature ot of very early times and while some of file tales are exaggerated we know that showers of organic matter actually do occur when the entire contents of a pond are sucked up hy by a whirlwind and dropped perhaps miles away ami from their point of origin peculiar superstitions exist about toads and frogs in ninny many countries since most races of men observe closely only those creatures which are either directly useful to them or potentially injurious the majority of the amphibians escaped anything thing r resembling ese in close and protracted study until relatively recent years it was not of until about two centuries ago that the facts of hibernation were ere definitely knox know n to science detore that time it aas as that frogs were sere pro c r L acted from 1 the mud an idea prop propped proposed oed ly by no less an than the illustrious arious arl r t tip tie hini elf |