Nature. Gluttony in a Frog.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1809, 9 February 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

Nature. Gluttony in a Frog.

A kaiheh interesting incident occurred while I wasastudent in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College. In the Peabody Museum we had a large wire cage containing numerous reptiles, and among these was a frog of unusual size. On one of our excursions I brought in a number of frogs and other animals, and going to the cage dropped the contents of the jar, frogs and all, down among the animals at the bottom. The large frog, which had been confined there for somo time, caught ono of the small ones before it reached the bottom of the cage, and swallowed it with as great ease as he would have captured a fly. This quickly done, he sat and looked about with an air of satisfaction for a moment, then sprang upon another of medium size, caught and swallowed it as quickly as the first. This done, there was another pause of a couple of minutes, and then, with another quick bound, he seized and swallowed a third 1 frog, equal in size to the second. This accomplished there was another pause of about five minutes, and then another quick, savase bound for a fourth victim, this time for a frog two-thirds the size of himself. Each of the three was Beized and swallowed head first, but the fourth effort was not so successful as the others, for this he only managed to get into hi« mouth as far as hia hind legs, when there was a pause and a struggle. The unfortunate frog in the mouth of the large one persisted in holding its hind leg? out sidewise, at right angles to its body, as if conscious that these tactics would prevent the other from swallowing it ; and at the same time the large one used its front fpet, at times' ono, and again both, to straighten out the hind legs of his victim so that he might be able to swallow it; and while this struggle was going on, he made frequent efforts to use the sides and bottom of his cage as an object against which to press the other frog, so as to aid his efforts to swallow it. The struggle, however, after lasting a number of minutes, terminated in favor of the smaller frog, for by desperate efforts it managed to elude the grasp of its assailant ; but while the battle did last it used both its muscular and vocal powers to their utmost to thwart the murderous designs of the enemy. — B. F. Room in American Naturalist.