s; but
when it is cold, they take a longer time.

8. The frog, when full grown, can live on the land or in the water. It
can stay under water some time, but must come to the top to breathe.

LESSON XLVIII.

_MORE ABOUT FROGS._

[Illustration]

1. Each Mrs. Frog lays about one thousand eggs, and if they all
hatched and grew, every swampy country would soon be overrun with
frogs.

2. But fish, birds, and serpents eat them in such numbers that they
only about hold their own year by year. Some kinds of frogs are also
found to be good food for men, and are caught for that purpose.

3. Frogs are lively and noisy in the first warm days of spring and
summer. The little peeping frogs keep up their shrill music all night
and day, and with it we hear the deep voice of the bull-frog, like a
bass-drum heard at a distance.

4. The bull-frog is the largest of the frog kind. It eats worms,
insects, and snails, and sometimes it even eats its own tadpoles.

[Illustration]

5. In summer, we hear among the trees a shrill kind of whirring sound,
which is kept up for a long time without any pause. This is the song
of the tree-frog, sometimes called the tree-toad.

6. This is a very small frog. It is born in the water, like other
frogs; but when it comes out in the spring, it climbs into the trees
and lives there.

7. Its feet spread out into broad, flat toes, from the bottom of which
comes out a sticky fluid. By means of these toes, which partly act as
suckers, the frog can crawl along on the under side of branches
without falling.

8. The color of the tree-frog is so much like that of the wood it
clings to that it can not be seen unless we look very closely for it.

LESSON XLIX.

_THE FRIENDLY TOAD._

[Illustration]

1. The toad, which we find in our gardens and yards slowly crawling
about, or making short hops, is a cousin of the frog, and is made very
much like him.

2. The frog has a smooth skin; but the skin of the toad is thick, and
is covered with warts. It has a larger mouth than the frog, and, on
the whole, it can not be called handsome.

3. The toad, like the frog, is usually born in the water, and is at
first a tadpole. When it loses its gills and tail, it comes out of the
water and lives upon the land, until it goes into the water again in
the spring to lay its eggs.

4. Sometimes the toad can not reach the water at the proper time, and
then the tadpole changes to a perfect toad soon a