File:Reptiles and birds - a popular account of their various orders, with a description of the habits and economy of the most interesting (1883) (14749136101).jpg

Identifier: reptilesbirds00figu (find matches)
Title: Reptiles and birds : a popular account of their various orders, with a description of the habits and economy of the most interesting
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Figuier, Louis, 1819-1894 Gillmore, Parker
Subjects: Reptiles Birds
Publisher: London : Cassell & Co.
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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ourselves, we cannot see the banks of our streams embellishedby its presence and animated with its gambols without pleasure.VVhy should we not follow with our eyes their movements in ourponds, where they enliven the solitude without disturbing its tran-quillity. P>ogs often leave the water, not only to seek their nourish-ment, but to warm themselves in the sun. When they repose thus, * They are regarded by some naturalists as a sub-class of Fishes rather thanas Reptiles; as piscine forms, certain of which develop to a paralleHsm with theordinary reptilian condition of advancement; their reproduction especially favourIng this view.—Ed. THE EDIBLE FROG. 19 with the head Hfted up, the body raised in front and supportedupon the fore feet, the attitude is more that of an animal of higherorganisation than an humble Batrachian. Frogs feed on larvae,aquatic insects, worms, and small molluscs. They select their preyfrom living and moving creatures, for which they watch, and, when / f\ki^
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Fig. 4.—The Edible Frog. within proper distance, they spring on them with extraordinary rapidity.A large Indian species (R. tigrind) has been seen to prey occasionallyupon young sparrows. Far from being dumb, Hke many oviparousquadrupeds, frogs have the gift of voice. The females only producea peculiar low note, caused by the air which vibrates in the interiorof two vocal pouches placed on the sides of the neck ; but the cryof the male is sonorous, and heard at a great distance : it is a croakwhich the Greek poet Aristophanes endeavoured to imitate by the 20 REPTILES AND BIRDS, inharmonic consonants, biekekexkoax, coax I It is principally duringrain, or in the evenings and mornings of hot days, that frogs are tobe heard. Under the feudal system, during the good old times of the Middle Ages, the country seats of many of the nobility andcountry squires were surrounded by ditches half full of water, and,as might be expected, inliabited by a population of frogs. Vassalsand villeins were

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