CHAPTER VIII.

THE ANCIENT ORDER OF BATRACHIANS.

"The swimming-frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt, and the water."

THE Batrachians are not by any means such strangers as some people may imagine. The reader who has forgotten his Greek, or who never had any Greek to forget, may fail to recognize them, but they have amongst them many old familiar faces for all that.

Let nobody therefore run away with the notion that this same ancient order is some old, broken-up, dead-and-gone fraternity, similar to those illustrious orders of Odd Fellows, Green Foresters, Ancient Druids, and the like, which still find countenance and support amongst the children of men. The idea is altogether beside the mark. The Batrachians do not belong to the human family at all. They are a race, not of men, but of reptiles, the best known members of the order being the "small deer" enumerated above, from that extraordinary list of dainties which the banished Edgar palms off upon his father as his "food for seven long year."

No one will dispute that these little fellows are for the most part familiar enough; and yet how far removed are they from being familiar friends! The truth is, the Batrachians have but few admirers. They labour under that direst of misfortunes-a bad name. Innocent and inoffensive, and doing no small amount of good in their way, they are yet misrepresented and maligned, their good qualities denied, and bad qualities from which they are wholly exempt, obstinately laid to their charge. There is perhaps hardly another race of creatures in existence which is so unanimously hated, and hunted to death, as this poor obscure race of reptiles. It matters not that Homer has sung of their exploits, that Aristophanes has embellished them with his wit, that their history is one of the most wonderful on record,—no

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THE ANCIENT ORDER OF BATRACHIANS.

thing avails to overcome the settled antipathy of mankind; and the Batrachians will probably go on to the end of their days maltreated and maligned, an unoffending but cruelly persecuted

race.

It generally happens that injustice of this sort brings about its own punishment, and this is certainly the case in reference to the hard measure so undeservedly meted out to the Batrachians. The world looks down upon them, gives them ill names, affects a sort of horror of them, and does its best to kick them out of sight; and the consequence is that the world knows next to nothing about them, and thus misses one of the most marvellous chapters in the whole range of zoological science. The Batrachiophobia is at length giving way in one direction, it is true ; for the Aquarium has made it manifest that the Water-Newts, spite of a long-cherished belief to the contrary, are perfectly harmless little creatures, elegant withal in their appearance, and very engaging in their behaviour. If prejudice did not stand in the way, we should be ready to admit that others of the order were equally deserving of our attention, and that “horrid” and "odious" as they are generally voted, it would be well worth the while of the curious in such matters to inquire into the details of their habits and economy.

We propose, then, to put in a plea on behalf of the Frog and his friends, and to show cause why the entire fraternity of Batrachians should henceforth be dealt with in a more humane and considerate fashion. It will be no difficult task to accomplish, nor will it involve us in anything like a dull and disagreeable discourse; for however repugnant it may be to the notions prevalent on this side of the English Channel to introduce any of these little fellows upon the dinner-table, there can be no question as to the excellence of the literary pièce de résistance they furnish, if only it be concocted with a little artistic discrimination and

care.

It may be as well, perhaps, to begin by informing such as are disposed to look down upon the Batrachians, that in the estimation of some of the first naturalists of the day, these animals are entitled to a considerably higher rank than that to which they are generally supposed to belong. The common idea of course is that they are neither more nor less than reptiles; the entire group being regarded as one of the "orders" or principal divisions of

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that class of animals. The opinion, however, is now very generally entertained that they ought properly to be regarded as constituting by themselves a distinct class, equal in relative importance to each of the other great classes of the animal world, and occupying an intermediate position between the true reptiles and the inferior class of fishes. If this view of the matter be allowed, our little friend the Frog and his allies will part company with their quondam associates of the reptile tribes,—the snakes, the lizards, and the tortoises,—and, raised to a higher level, will take their place on terms of equality with the other great divisions of the vertebrate animals. The Batrachians themselves are no doubt sublimely indifferent as to which way the decision may go on this very grave question, and would be but little elated, it may be presumed, should their elevation to the dignity of an independent class be ultimately agreed to by a unanimous vote of all the zoological professors of Christendom. But, for all that, the question is not without its interest to the student of nature; and as the Batrachians do really stand as candidates for this elevated post, they ought certainly to be regarded with becoming deference and respect.

But, whatever may be the true style and title of the Batrachians-whether they continue to be regarded as a subordinate group of the reptile class, or be raised to a class by themselves— one thing is quite certain, namely, that they do differ very materially from ordinary reptiles, and approximate in many particulars to the class of fishes. The group, as a whole, forms a clear and unmistakable transition from the one class to the other. In the lower divisions of it we meet with creatures so completely fish-like in character, that they can be separated from the fishes only by fixing on some point of distinction which is purely arbitrary in its nature; and from these questionable forms we advance, step by step, to the higher divisions, the members of which make a close approach to the character of true reptiles. It is obvious therefore that the Batrachians form a strictly intermediate and transitionary group; and so completely do they bridge over the difference between the fishes adapted for a purely aquatic life and the true air-breathing land reptiles, that they obliterate, so to speak, all essential distinction between them.

If there be any one thing which more than another shows the true character of the Batrachians, it is the remarkable changes

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DEPOSITION OF SPAWN.

they undergo in the early period of their history. The transformation of a Tadpole into a Frog exhibits, in the successive phases of the life of an individual animal, substantially the same stages of advancement towards a higher type of organization as are marked by the mature forms of the several members of the group as a whole. It will be interesting therefore to notice by what steps this progressive improvement of structure is made ; and as there is no lack of Tadpoles in our ponds and ditches throughout the spring and early part of summer, any of our readers who choose to do so may readily verify our statements for themselves.

In the beginning of March, then, the Frogs which all the winter through have been comfortably "conglobulated" together, as Dr. Johnson said of the swallows, in the mud at the bottom of the ponds and ditches, wake up from their protracted sleep, and make their appearance at the surface of the water. In a little while they are all busily engaged in their nuptial rites, with respect to which the only remark we have to make is, that we wish they were somewhat less obtrusively thrust upon our notice. The eggs are deposited in large masses at the bottom of the water; but as each egg is surrounded by a covering of glutinous matter, which readily absorbs water, the entire mass speedily swells, and becoming lighter than the surrounding medium, it rises to the surface. In this stage the eggs appear as little black dots, separated from each other by a globular investment of transparent colourless jelly; and it is only by bearing in mind the extraordinary abundance in which this spawn is to be seen in the water in spring, that one can account for the myriads of tiny Frogs to be found hopping about the margins of the ponds later in the year. For about a month or five weeks the eggs gradually increase in size; at the end of that period the young Frogs-as yet, however, far otherwise than Frogs in form-burst the envelopes of the eggs, eat their way through the gelatinous walls that imprison them, and make their escape into the water.

In the condition in which the little creature commences its active life, it is known to every village urchin in the land as the Tadpole, or Loggerhead. The Cockney schoolboys give it the more expressive name of Tiddler. The little thing seems all head and tail. "It is provided," says Cuvier, "with a long fleshy tail and a small horny beak, and has no other apparent members

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but little fringes at the sides of the neck." These fringes are the Tadpole's breathing organs, and one of the earliest changes it experiences is the shrinking of these organs, and their subsequent disappearance beneath the skin, where they discharge the functions of the gills of a fish. The mouth of the Tadpole is placed low down in the front of the head, so that when the little fellow wishes to seize anything floating on the surface of the watc., he has to throw himself on his back like a shark; and so nimbly does he execute this manœuvre, that the eye cannot without difficulty follow it. Thus expert in appropriating food, the tadpole rapidly increases in size, the tail acquires greater breadth, and the limbs slowly make their appearance. The hind feet are developed first, increasing by little and little, and then the fore feet also appear. The beak now falls off and exposes the true jaws, which were before soft and concealed under the skin; the tail is gradually absorbed, and the young Frog begins to assume something like his mature form. In a few days more the little fellow, advanced to the dignity of positive froghood, takes his leave of the water, and steps ashore, thenceforth repudiating the shrivelled remnant of his once ample tail, which is now speedily disposed of after the manner in which Lord Monboddo and his disciples would have us believe that our own quadrumanous progenitors disposed of theirs.

While these external changes are in progress, modifications of still more importance are taking place in the whole of the internal organization.

In the first place, let us look at the development of the spinal column or back-bone. In the newly-hatched Tadpole this part of the structure consists of little more than a simple fibro-cartilaginous cord. As the little creature grows, this cord begins to ossify, though only in that portion which is to be retained in the future Frog. After the process of ossification has gone on for a short time, the cord becomes converted into a distinct vertebral column; both faces of the separate vertebræ in this early stage, however, are concave, and between each pair of vertebræ there is precisely the same sort of hollow filled with fluid as that which distinguishes the vertebral column of fishes. But ossification proceeds; and now gradually filling up the hinder cavity of each vertebra, and projecting the newly-formed bone into the front cavity of the vertebra behind, it finally converts the entire series