FROGS.
Greneuille, . . . FR. Ranocchia, . . . . IT.
Frosch GER. Rana, SP.
Mendak, . . HIND.
Frogs are very common in all the south and east of Asia. They belong to the reptile sub-class Batrachia, and order Batrachia salienta. The Malabar bull-frog, Hylorana Malabarica, occurs in several parts of the Peninsula of India. The Rana cutipora occurs in Ceylon ; it was named by Mr. Blyth Rana robusta. The little tree-frogs, Polypedates maculatus, Gray, shelter themselves beneath leaves from the heat of the sun ; and several species of Polypedates occur in this region. The toes of the tree-frogs terminate in discs. Many .of the small tree-frogs are rnimickers. When se.en their natural attitudes, they cannot be distinguished from beetles or other insect„s sitting upon leaves. Several species of toads occur in Ceylon, but the more common are 'Buffo melano stictus, Kelaartii, and asper. As in Europe, so in India these harmless creatures have ever been counted poisonous. In Ceylon this error is as old as the 3d century B.C. when, as the Mahawansa tells us, ch. xx. p. 122', the wife of king Asoko attempted to destroy the great Bo Tree (at Magadha) with the poisoned fano. of a toad. Frogs are eaten in Europe, in IndiAy the hum blest of the races, by many of the Burmese, and in China by all classes. In Southern India, on Fridays, in the convents, Christian ladies from Europe use them. They are caught in China by tying a worm or a young frog just emerged from tadpole life by the waist to a fish - line, and lobbine,c, him up and down in the grass and grain rice-fields where the old croakers are wont to harbour. As soon as one sees the young frog, he makes a plunge at him, and swallows hitn whole, whereupon he is immediately conveyed to the f rog fisher's basket, losing his life, liberty, and lunch together, for the bait is rescued from his maw, and used again as long as life lasts. Frogs, says
Fortune, are in great demand in all the Chinese towns, both in the north and south, wherever he had been, and they were very abundant in Nan-tsiu. They abound in shallow lakes and rice-fields, and many of them are very beautifully coloured, and look as if they had been painted by the hand of a first-rate artist. The vendors of these animals skin them alive in the streets in the most unmerci ful and apparently cruel way. They are brought to market in tubs and baskets, and the vendor employs himself in skinning them as he sits making sales. He takes up the frog in his left hand, and with a knife which he holds in his right chops off the fore part of its head. The skin is then drawn back over the body and down to the feet, which are chopped off and thrown away. The poor frog, still alive, but headless, skinless, and without feet, is then thrown into another tub, and the operation is repeated on the rest in the same way. Every now and then the artist lays down his knife, and takes up his scales to weigh these animals for his customers and make his sales. Everything in that civilised country, whether it be gold or silver, geese or frogs, is sold by weight. Boiled frogs in a Burmese bazar are exposed for sale among other articles of food. The Pyxi cephalus adspersus of Dr. Smith, the Matla-metlo of the Bechuana of S. Africa, when cooked, looks like a chicken. The length of the head and body is 5i inches, and the hind legs are 6 inches long. During the dry months they conceal themselves in holes which they make at the foot of bushes.— Williams' Middle Kingdom, p. 48 ; A Res. among the Chin. pp. 45, 343 ; Tennant's Ceylon ; Livingstone. See Reptiles.