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the Grass-frog are essentially terrestrial.
It spends most of its time on land,

preferably in damp places, but local fashion permits of a great deal of freedom, as
these frogs are sometimes found not only in very wet, naturally irrigated places,
but also in the water itself. However, the Grass-frog when pursued rarely takes to
the water for safety. It trusts to flight, first by a few long and fast jumps, and
then to concealment by squatting down between grass, under leaves; it rarely creeps
into a hole, even if there be one near. The jumps soon become shorter and shorter
after a few dozen repetitions. It swims well, but cannot climb. The food, which
consists chiefly of insects, snails, and worms, must be moving to excite interest;
then the frog, whose favourite position is half squatting, half supported by the
arms, erects itself, and, facing the insect, turns round upon its haunches, adjusts
its position anew by a shifting of the legs, and betrays its mental agitation by a
few rapid movements of the throat. All this time the prey is watched intently until
it moves; then there follows a jump, a flap of the tongue and the insect is seen no
more. As a rule these frogs do not crawl, they jump or hop, even whilst stalking,
and this takes place at any time of the day; in fact they are very diurnal,
although they become more active towards the evening. When caught they are at first
very wild and, like all true frogs, very impetuous, committing acts of astonishing
stupidity without any apparent sense or appreciation of distance or height. The
captive will not only jump off the table, whilst a toad stops at the edge and looks
carefully down, but without hesitation he jumps out of the window, regardless of
the height above the ground. This is due to sheer fright; he loses his head. When
at large in his native surroundings, nothing will induce him, although hotly
pursued, to commit suicide by jumping down a precipice. But all this wildness calms
down wonderfully soon. The captive no longer dashes his head against the glass, he
does not struggle or twist when taken up; on the contrary, he makes himself at
home, watches your coming with intense expectation, and without hesitation accepts
the proffered mealworm, maggot, butterfly or earthworm; in short, he shows what a
jolly and intelligent fellow he really is.
{254}
The Grass-frog has many more obvious enemies than perhaps any other Amphibian, and
it is not even slightly protected by any appreciable poisonous secretion.
Nevertheless it is extremely common. A whole host of birds eat it–for instance,
buzzards, harriers, and above all storks. Foxes, polecats, and stoats are not
averse to it, and the Grass-snake derives its main sustenance from it. In fact the
enemies of the little frog are legion, one of the worst being Man. In France,
Italy, and other parts of the Continent, the skinned fleshy hind-limbs are turned
into a by no means disagreeable ragoût, or into dainty morsels when fried in butter
and encrusted with bread-crumbs. This frog, together with its cousin the Water-
frog, also suffers from the distinction of being one of the chief martyrs to
science. Perhaps the story is true that Galvani was led to his investigations into
animal magnetism and electricity by observing that the legs of a number of skinned
frogs, strung up by his wife upon the bronze railings of the balcony, jumped
whenever the scissors, which cut off the feet, touched the other metal. Frogs have
suffered ever since. Easily procured and of a convenient size, they are used in
every biological laboratory, and the young student is supposed to be initiated into
the mysteries of Vertebrate structure by the careful dissection and study of this,
the worst of all the so-called types. Next to Man there is no animal which has been
studied so minutely, and has had so many primers and text-books written on it, as
this frog. In spite of all this it is very little understood, thanks to its rather
aberrant and far from generalised structure.
However, the frog, by reason of its fertility, holds its own. Early in the year,
sometimes while there is still ice and snow, the frogs leave their hibernating
places (mostly holes in the ground, under moss, or in the mud), and they begin to
pair in standing or slowly flowing, mostly shallow, waters.
They are not always very careful in the selection of the spawning locality, many of
them lay their eggs in a ditch, or even in the shallowest puddle, which is sure to
dry up, and thus to cause the destruction of the whole brood. This carelessness is
all the more surprising when there are large pools or lakes in the immediate
vicinity, perhaps only one hundred yards to the other side of the road. The
Natterjack is, by the way, equally careless, while other toads and the tree-frogs
are very circumspect.
{255}
fig49
Fig. 49.–Rana temporaria. Eight successive stages in the development from the egg
to the almost complete Frog, × 1.
Both sexes can croak, and this sound is frequently produced under water; but there
are no regular concerts, although many collect in the same pond or spring, which is
perhaps the only suitable place for miles around. The male puts its arms around the
chest of the female, behind her arms, and the embrace is so firm that nothing will
induce him to loosen his hold. The process becomes an involuntary reflex-action, a
cramp which may last for days, or even for weeks, if sudden cold weather sets in,
until the female is ready to expel the eggs, an act which is quick and soon over.
The usual time of spawning in Middle Europe is the month of March, earlier in warm,
later in cold seasons; in southern countries, February or even January, but in
Norway not until May. Although the males of this species are not more numerous than
the females, and therefore should be able to mate without much trouble, their
ardour is so great that they occasionally get hold not only of the wrong kind of
frogs, but of toads or even fishes, and, if taken off by force, they fasten on to
anything else, a log or on to your own fingers. The eggs measure 2-3 mm. in
diameter, are black with a whitish spot on the lower pole, number from 1000 to
2000, and sink at first to the bottom. Their gelatinous cover soon swells to a
large globe more than 10 cm. in width, and the whole mass, as large as a man's
head, floats on the surface, often stained with mud and other impurities. During
the cold weather which often prevails in the spring, the dark brown larvae are slow
in their development; and provided with rather large branched external gills and a
well-developed tail, they wriggle about in the dissolving slime for three or four
weeks. Fischer Sigwart[114] has timed and measured them as follows.–The eggs were
laid on the 10th of {256}March. On the 15th the larvae were 4 mm. long and began to
leave the eggs. On the 19th they measured, body 4, tail 9, total 13 mm.; on the 5th
of April 10, 16, and 26 mm. respectively. On the 13th of May they were 40 mm. long
and the hind-limbs appeared; the fore-legs burst through on the 25th, when the
tadpoles had reached their greatest length, namely 45 mm., the body measuring 15
mm. On the 31st of May they left the water, still provided with a rather long tail
of 20 mm., the total length being reduced to 35 mm. The larvae of this set
developed unusually fast, perhaps owing to artificial conditions. The whole
development is, however, mostly finished in three months, so that the little stump-
tailed baby-frogs swarm about well before midsummer, and have time enough to grow
to the size of 20 mm. or ¾ inch before they begin to hibernate in October.
In higher localities and in northern countries the tadpoles are sometimes obliged
to winter in the unfinished condition.
In spite of the unusually hot summer of 1899 I found plenty of tadpoles on the 10th
of September in the tarns of the hills of North Wales, 1500 feet above the level of
the sea; while thousands of little frogs, with and without stumpy tails, were
hopping about in the surrounding bogs. The water of these tarns is always very
cool. Cold and rainy weather set in by the middle of the month, and on the 26th the
tadpoles, all rather small, measuring only 35 mm., with the four limbs developed,
but still with a broad fin on the tail, had all settled down under stones at the
bottom of the now very cold water, prepared for hibernation. A few were taken home
and kept in a glass vessel with water, cool, but less so than that of their native
tarns. Within two days they lost the fins on their tails; before the end of a week
they left the water, and crawled on to the moss, and the tails were reduced to
little stumps. By the 10th of October the metamorphosis was complete, the little
frogs measured only 13 mm. in length and showed no desire to hibernate in the
genial atmosphere of the greenhouse.
This species has a very wide distribution. It ranges from the west of Ireland to
the islands of Saghalin and Yezzo, being found everywhere in the enormous stretch
of intervening countries, practically the whole of Central and Northern Europe and
the middle belt of Asia. Its most northern extent is the whole of Sweden and
Norway. I have found it to the east of the {257}Dovrefjeld, at an elevation of 4000
feet, well-nigh the snow-line. In conformity herewith it ascends the Italian Alps
up to 10,000 feet. The southern limit in Europe is the Cantabrian range and the
hilly province of Galicia. In the rest of the peninsula, in Italy and Lombardy,
Greece and Turkey, and on the Mediterranean islands it is absent.
R. arvalis is often

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the Grass-frog are essentially terrestrial.

It spends most of its time on land,

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