clodding as it is sometimes called, is a very common and successful
method, consisting in bunching a number of earthworms upon a worsted
string, and lowering it near the place where the fishes are supposed
to be feeding. So eagerly do the voracious fish seize the bait, and so
fiercely do they bite, that they are pulled out of the water before
they have time to collect their thoughts and disengage their teeth from
the string. Night-lines, which are laid in the evening and taken up in
the morning, are another plan. But the most successful method is by
spearing. The spear used for the purpose is not unlike the conventional
trident of Neptune, except that the prongs are four in number,
flattened, slightly barbed on each edge, and spread rather widely from
their junction with the shaft. This is pushed at random into the muddy
banks where the Eels love to lie, and when one is caught, its long
snake-like body is wedged in between the jagged prongs and lifted into
the boat before it is able to extricate itself. Almost any kind of food
that it can master, whether aquatic or terrestrial, is eaten to satisfy
the creature’s most voracious appetite. Even mice and rats fall victims
to its hunger, and an Eel is recorded to have been found floating dead
on the water, having been choked to death by a rat which it had essayed
to swallow, but which proved too large a morsel for its throat.
So remarkable is the tenacity of life which this fish possesses,
that after the creature has been cut up into lengths, each separate
piece will move as if alive, and at the touch of a pin’s point will
curve itself as though it felt the injury. When all irritability has
ceased, the portions will flounce vigorously about if placed in boiling
water, and even after its influence has ceased will, upon the addition
of salt, jump about as vigorously as before. There can be no real
sensation, let it be understood, as the spinal cord has been severed
and all connection with the brain, which is the seat of sensation, has
been cut off.
How the Eel reproduces its kind has long been a subject of discussion.
Some held that the young is produced in a living condition, and others
that it is hatched from the egg. The matter has, however, been set at
rest by the microscope, which shows that the oily-looking substance,
generally called fat, which is found in the abdomen of the Eel, is
really an aggregation of eggs, and that these objects, minute as they
are, and which are not so large as the point of a pin, are quite as
perfect in their structure as the eggs of a moth or a bird are seen to
be to the naked, unaided vision.
_Anguilla rostrata_, as the Common American Eel is technically known,
is abundant in the United States, living in fresh-water streams, but
depositing its eggs, often eight millions to a single fish, in the
ocean, the young ascending the rivers. Eels are devoid of ventral
fins. Their scales, which are very minute, are covered with a thick,
slime-like material. Under the microscope each scale is beautifully
ornamented, and the exquisite pattern formed by the scales on the skin
may be readily and effectively seen if a bit of it, when fresh, be
placed on the window-glass and allowed to dry. The sexes are difficult
to distinguish; the females have the highest dorsal fin, smaller eyes,
and a lighter color than the males, while the snout is generally
broader at the tip.
When contiguous to the sea, as in a pond near Wells, on the coast of
Maine, the Eels invariably go down into salt water at night. As the
connecting stream is narrow, the sight is remarkable, thousands filling
the channel, many of whom, when alarmed, leaving the water and passing
over the dry rocks to the ocean. Eels are not the silent creatures
which many persons suppose them to be. They frequently utter a sound,
expressed by a single note, which is more distinctly musical than the
sounds made by other fishes, and which has a clear metallic resonance.
They are of slow growth, scarcely reaching the length of twelve inches
during the first year, but subsequently attaining to large dimensions,
the preserved skins of two Eels, which Mr. Yarrall saw at Cambridge,
England, weighing together fifty pounds, the heavier being twenty-seven
pounds in weight.
[Illustration: COMMON AMERICAN EEL.
How It Seeks New Feeding-Grounds.]
Fish, as a rule, do not live more than a few minutes out of the water.
An Eel, however, will remain alive for many hours, and even days, in
atmospheric air, provided it is laid in a damp place. Now, if one
be carefully watched when placed upon dry land, it will be observed
to pout out the cheeks on both sides of its face. Underneath this
puffed-out skin will be found the gills, and the skin which covers them
will be seen to be so arranged as to form a closed sac, which the Eel
fills with water, and so keeps the gill-fibres moist. This wonderful
contrivance enables the Eel to come out of the water, and to travel, so
to speak, by land. Thus Eels are often found in outlying ponds of human
construction, where they were never placed by the hand of man. Finding
old quarters uncomfortable, they take in a good supply of water, and
exchange them for the better, not by repeated leaps towards the water,
as some fish are known to do, but by a smooth, uniform snake-like
progression.
That some fishes should leave the water and travel overland is,
perhaps, not more remarkable than that some birds, the ouzel for
example, should leave their natural element and fly into and under
the water. Whoever knows the hidden paths of the marsh has doubtless
watched the brown-hued Eels wriggling their way through the grass
from one pool to another, especially at night, leaving their home and
wandering about, seemingly unconscious whither their pilgrimage will
end.
“Slippery as an Eel” is proverbial. Many a person has, by his slick,
cunning ways, succeeded in eluding the law and escaping justice,
affording an apt illustration of the character of the animal about
which we have been talking, but the slipperiness of the Eel is not
given to it that it may take some unlawful advantage of its neighbors,
but that it may the more readily slip from the grasp of a more powerful
enemy, or the more easily make its way into the muddy depths of the
pond or stream which it so very much affects. So it will be seen that
while this slippery character in the one is protective, in the economy
of nature, for a wise and laudable purpose, yet in the other it but
secures to the possessor the getting of an ignoble gain and the ruin of
a once proud name.
While these agile denizens of aquatic life are selfish and voracious
almost beyond precedent, and apparently more concerned in feeding than
in anything else, there are certainly some traits in their character
which are redeeming features. Low as they are in the scale of piscine
existences, occupying the very lowest family of the Anguillidine
Apodes, they are none the less susceptible to the human influence of
kindness. They grow accustomed to man when good is at the basis of
his actions, and have been known to accept food from his hand. They
remember the face of a friend, and when it is presented at the door of
glass, so to speak, that opens the way to their home, they come without
fear or suspicion showing itself in their movements. Even the sound
of the voice of a benefactor awakens a sympathetic response in their
bosoms.
RANA AND BUFO.
Belonging to the lower vertebrates is a family of animals called
scientifically Ranidæ, but which are, popularly speaking, best known as
frogs. They are queer-looking creatures, scarcely met with in Australia
and South America, but reaching their highest state in the East Indies.
They are capable of enduring great changes of heat and cold, and can
live on land as well as in water, provided they have the amount of
moisture necessary to preserve the suppleness of their skins. Salt
water is fatal to the frog in any stage of its existence.
_Rana clamata_, the lusty croaker of the summer pond, is our most
familiar species. He may be recognized by the colors of his dress,
in which green, bronze, gold and silver play important parts, and by
the ear-splitting character of his vocal intonations. The glandular
ridges down the skin of his back, together with his strange coloration,
singularly fit him for his home. Imitations of the stems of plants
are seen in the darker ridges, and their leafage in the green color
of his coat. The silver of his vest has the glimmer of the water in
which he bathes, and the moist earth seems to have left its stain upon
his brownish feet and markings, while the yellow of the several badges
that adorn his person in being like the stamens and pistils of the
surrounding flowers, and of the hue of many buds and blossoms, adds
largely to his protective display. Thus is the frog in his natural
haunts protected by his garments, and, unless he stirs or is betrayed
by his full, bright eyes or the palpitation of his breast, he is not
likely to be observed.
Four fingers or toes are found upon the anterior extremities, while
those of the posterior are five in number and webbed. The front legs
are much shorter, smaller and weaker than the hind ones, which are
largely developed, and thus serviceable in swimming and leaping.
Though the frog is possessed of a back-bone, yet he has no ribs.
Being ribless, he cannot expand and contract his chest in breathing,
but must swallow what air he requires. In swallowing the air he must
close the mouth and take the air in only by the nostrils; therefore,
oddly enough, if his mouth is forcibly kept open, he will smother. The
frog’s breathing, a fact not generally known, is partly through his
skin, which gives off carbonic acid gas; and moisture, therefore, is
just as essential to his skin as it is to the gills of a fish. Damp,
rainy weather is his extreme delight. When the rain falls, out come
the frogs. Their skin absorbs moisture, which is stored up in internal
reservoirs, and some of this water, when these timid creatures are
alarmed by being suddenly seized, is ejected, but I do not think that
it is purposely so done, as the water is not, as some people have
fancied, of a poisonous nature. Frogs have no poison-sacs, and in truth
no weapons of any kind.
Open a frog’s mouth, and you will find but a few tiny teeth in the
upper jaw and palate, which are useful for the partial grinding up of
horny insects. His tongue you will discover to be a very odd affair,
which is fastened at the front end of the mouth, the hinder part being
free and hanging down the creature’s throat. This organ is covered with
a glue-like secretion. When an insect is to be captured, it is snapped
forward from the mouth, and, striking the insect, which it seldom fails
to do, causes it to adhere as to bird-lime.
A few thoughts now about the life-history of the frog. From egg to egg
is the story. In roundish masses, upon sticks lying in water, or upon
the leaves and stems of submerged water-plants, are the eggs deposited.
The creature that comes from the egg is no more like a frog than a
caterpillar is like a butterfly. It has a large head, small tail,
branched gills, and is devoid of limbs, resembling, in this stage, more
a fish than a frog. This is its early childhood, or tadpole state. It
can only live in water now, and swims and feeds from the very moment it
leaves the egg. Change in form almost immediately begins, the branched
gills being drawn within the neck and hidden, a pair of fore-legs
beginning to bud, and subsequently a pair of hind-legs, which push out
much faster than the fore-legs. As the legs grow, the tail is gradually
absorbed and disappears. The interior of the body meanwhile changes,
the lungs and heart becoming reptilian. When the gills and tail are
gone, and the legs are fully formed, the once-swimming tadpole hops out
of the water a perfectly-formed frog.
When first the tadpole emerged from the egg, it ate the jelly-like
cover. Then soft animal and vegetable matters, with the strengthening
of its pair of horny jaws, began to be devoured. Insects later on, and
even its own kith and kin, became its food. The fare of the adult frog
is almost exclusively insect in character, although necessity sometimes
drives him to make a meal out of some of his weaker brethren.
Seated in cool, leafy shadows, not far from his favorite stream or
pool, the frog watches with his great, black, gold-ringed eyes for such
insects as good fortune shall bring to his retreat. As one hovers near,
out flies his limber, sticky, ribbon-like tongue, true to its mark, and
the hapless insect, adhering to the viscid projected ribbon, is gently
and cleverly deposited in the open throat, the frog maintaining all the
while an air of calm, superior self-satisfaction, as if he had not so
much satisfied an appetite as fulfilled the mission of ridding nature
of a superfluous insect.
A most harmless, timid and interesting animal is the frog, and often
most unfortunate. He is the legitimate mark for all the missiles that
can be thrown at him by urchins wandering about his native pool.
Snakes make him their prey, and he is always in mental fear lest some
insidious serpent shall take him unawares, or his musings shall be
suddenly cut short by the stately progress of some swan or goose,
sailing over the limpid water, or searching the green herbage wherein
he sits concealed.
[Illustration: RANA CLAMATA, OR GREEN FROG.
Lusty Croaker of the Summer Pond.]
That he is susceptible of being trained, there can be no question. Man
is not always viewed by him as an inveterate enemy, nor does he always
dive headlong into the pool when his presence is near. He has been
known to cultivate man’s acquaintance, and to live on friendly terms
with him. Some three years ago a tiny frog was taken from a swamp by a
friend and placed in a small stream of spring water that passed close
to the house where the writer was summering. A dozen times a day the
little frog was dipped up by the hand from the bottom of the stream,
and forced to endure down the head and back the tenderest caresses. A
few insects were then offered as food in conciliation for the liberty
taken, which the little frog was only induced to accept after a great
deal of persuasion, when he was carefully put back into his watery
bath. In the space of a week, the frog had become so attached to his
friend, that he would leap into his outstretched hand and take his food
without the least distrust or fear. Even the voice of the master was
recognized by the frog, and, when heard in the distance, was the signal
for the strangest behavior. Froggie would leap out of the water upon
a bare stretch of earth, peer off in the direction whence the sound
came, and there await his master’s arrival with restless anxiety. The
strongest bond of friendship seemed to unite the two. Not only was the
frog able to recognize the voice of his friend, but he knew him in
person as well. Repeated efforts were made by the writer to gain the
attention and good-will of the frog, but all his advances were received
with the utmost indifference.
While the species which I have just described represents the aquatic
Ranidæ, the Wood-frog, its near kin, represents a branch of the family
which prefers dry situations, except in breeding times, when the eggs
must be deposited in water. The Wood-frog is somewhat smaller than
the Bull-frog, and is clad in olive-green and brown colors, which are
in perfect keeping with the coloration of dead leaves and dry twigs.
There is a large black patch on the side of the head around the big
ear-drum, which seems still further to distinguish him from his cousin.
He is a very shy and suspicious creature, and makes a prodigious jump
at the first intimation of danger, his leaps being so enormous that it
is very difficult to capture him. When upon the ground, he can hardly
be discerned from the dry vegetation around. By hiding in damp moss or
in decayed logs, and in little hollows in the ground, he is enabled to
maintain the moisture of his skin. He avoids the sunshine, and keeps
close to the earth.
Another curious Rana is the Tree-frog. He is smaller than any of his
cousins, and may be known by his bright green dress, which is spotted
with black, and by a membrane stretched between his toes, which gives
him a broad, flat surface, while it helps to sustain him as he leaps,
somewhat after the fashion of a flying squirrel, from branch to branch.
In tropical regions, where many of the trees are bedecked with gorgeous
blossoms, Tree-frogs appear in the gayest of colors, the splendor of
their garb being protective in such surroundings.
Dressed in black and light brown, and living in marshes in the
Eastern United States, is another species--the Swamp-frog. His voice
is a prolonged croak, which, to the practised ear, can be readily
distinguished from the bawl of Clamata, or the roar of the Bull-frog.
Cats, geese, hawks, vultures, owls and other animals eat frogs, and the
luckless creatures can scarcely appear without finding an enemy. But
nature, who is a very wise and considerate mother, provides a means for
balancing this great destruction of their forces in endowing them with
wonderful reproductive organs. So prolific are frogs, that when the
little black tadpoles appear, so thickly are they huddled together that
the pond seems literally alive with their swimming forms.
In the same class of animals to which the frogs belong, as well as to
the same order, but to a different sub-order, are placed the toads,
somewhat remote cousins of the frogs. As the frog is well-known about
our ponds, so the toad is a constant denizen of our groves and gardens.
The frog, you have been told, is a species of Rana, and now I shall
introduce to you the toad as a species of Bufo. In general anatomy they
are alike. Their eggs and young are closely similar, and the stages
of growth from egg to adult form are nearly identical. When the adult
stage is attained the frogs and toads are very tiny creatures, but,
small as they are, they are readily distinguishable from each other by
the conformation of the snout, and by the larger development of the
hind-legs of the frog. Their chief differences will now be enumerated.
The toad has no teeth, but the frog, as has been stated before, has
teeth in both the upper jaw and the palate. Similarly attached is the
tongue, but the free end of the frog’s tongue is forked, and the toad’s
entire. The skin of the toad is usually warty, while the frog’s is
smooth. A rounder body, shorter hind-legs, less fully webbed feet and
more rounded snout still further distinguish the toad from the frog.
Their soft moist skin shows them to be Amphibians. The absence of tails
places them among the Anuran, or Tailless Amphibians. Thus far they
agree well together, but differences loom up upon careful examination,
and we are compelled to say of the frog that he belongs to the Ranidæ,
and of the toad that he belongs to the Bufonidæ. Of the two animals,
the toad is by far the more interesting and useful.
The toad is almost unrestricted in his territorial range. He hops
through the tropics and the temperate zones, and well up into the
polar regions. Everywhere he is the same inoffensive, gentle, humble,
useful and generally silent creature. But like his human brother he
has his faults. He has a great fondness for bees. Happy is he when,
brigand-like, he can stand by the highway of the bees and capture them
as they return to their waxen city. Their wealth of honey he does not
demand as a ransom, but swallows the little creatures themselves, alive
and whole, and digests them at leisure. Bee-eating seems his only
fault. Not only the hive-bee, but other insects as well, share his
attention. Millions of noxious beetles and bugs are devoured, and the
world is the richer by thousands of bushels of fruit and vegetables.
The good he accomplishes largely outweighs the mischief he commits.
So ceaselessly and swiftly he swallows his game, that a grasshopper’s
legs or a sphinx’s antennæ may often be seen sticking out of his mouth,
while the carcass itself is well down in his throat. French gardeners
so appreciate his utility that he is brought to market and sold for a
pittance to such as may need his services.
[Illustration: COMMON AMERICAN TOAD.
How He Manages a Difficulty.]
Toads can be tamed and taught to eat from the hand. They are easily
beguiled with sugar and with bread that has been soaked in milk, but,
like a captious child, they eat only the middle out of the slice, and
leave the crust. We once saw a toad, a noble fellow he was, who, at a
certain hour of the closing day, would come from his gloomy retreat
to receive at the hands of man his supper of flies, which he had been
trained to catch on the throw. So unerringly would his tongue dart out
at the opportune moment, that he seldom, if ever, shot wide of his
mark. It is amusing to observe him when, in his greed and haste, he has
attempted to swallow a huge grasshopper whose legs will not accommodate
themselves to his peculiar gape of mouth. How he swallows and twists
and contracts the walls of his throat, but the legs seem unmanageable.
He does not give up, or endeavor to eject the half-swallowed body,
but ponders the matter over and over. A look of delight beams out of
his eyes, that shows he has managed the problem. Up goes to the mouth
the right fore-leg, and, in less time than it takes to chronicle the
event, the obstreperous insect is pushed into the stomach.
Some curious myths are told of the toad. One says he can live for
hundreds of years encased in clay or in stone. No more true of Bufo
is this than of Rana, his cousin. Another asserts that his skin,
when handled, is productive of warts, and that the fluid he emits,
which serves but to moisten his body, for without moisture he could
certainly not live, and to protect him from enemies, is poisonous in
character. His power to produce warts, we cannot admit. But that the
fluid he exudes, if not poisonous to touch, is offensive to animals,
there can be no doubt. We are led to this conclusion from the following
considerations: Dogs, young animals especially, are prone to attack
the toad, but they never want to repeat their experience. The toad’s
exudation so affects the salivary glands of the dog as to cause him to
froth and foam like an animal with rabies. A case is recalled where
a dog, that had taken a toad in his mouth, became almost frantic.
This dog never afterwards was well. His whole system apparently
had become diseased, and, in less than a year, he had wasted to a
complete skeleton, when death relieved him of his sufferings. Another
allegation, that the toad has a jewel in his head, has been believed
from very ancient times. The story doubtlessly originated from the
beauty of the toad’s eyes, the irides being a rich flame-color, which,
in the dusk of the even, shine like burnished gems.
When hatched the young of the toad are of a jet black color, and are
very active. Their changes are made very early and in the same manner
as those of the frog. They are quite small when arrived at the perfect
toad state. Their legs produced and their tails absorbed, they quit
the water and set out on long journeys. Unlike the frog, which is a
home-stayer, the toad is a born vagrant. They travel chiefly by night,
hiding under stones and herbage during the day. If clouds cover the
sky, they take heart and joyously hop forth upon their pilgrimage.
During a long drouth they mysteriously disappear, but if a rain comes
on they suddenly come out by hundreds, and this has given rise to the
tale of a “shower of toads.”
Worms, as well as flies, etc., constitute a toad’s bill of fare. After
a rain toads and worms, it would seem, are mutually inspired to take
their walks abroad, and many an unfortunate worm makes its way into
the toad’s maw. Dead insects are at a discount with him, and he views
with suspicion anything that shows not the active wriggling principle
of life. When winter comes on the toad, like the frog, goes into
winter-quarters. Since the young toad reaches its adult size in the
autumn, it is forced to pass the first period of its grown-up life in a
sleep, or coma, in some hole or burrow which it has found or fashioned
in the earth. Sometimes toads creep into rock-crevices, or into hollows
in logs and trees, and being found in these places in the early spring
are hastily supposed to have been prisoners for many years.