San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1883-05-31
FROGS.
The Traditions Regardine Them, and Something
OF the Delleacy OF Their Hams.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer.


gun to run their course. Let not he
who loves his stomach despair, how
ever, for the juicy, tender, delicious
frog has come-he who in France
makes his entrance and exit by the
light of wax boueies and the popping of
seductive Widow Clicquot. There is
prejudice among some people about
frogs as a steady diet. 1t is not
founded on reason. What animal or
reptile so much resembles man as the
frog? Many men and more women
think they can sing. They can't.
Neither can the frog, though from
time immemorial his lugubrious wall,
solemn croak, has been heard at dewy
eve by all summer boarders. Who
has not seen men that looked just
like frogs eardless, bald-pated, wide
mouth, receding chin, prominent eyes,
aldermanic-bellied sort of fellows?
Then with their eyes they exercise the
electric power, and what ladies do not?
1t is a fact in natural history that
some men have endeavored to stand
the gaze of the frogs eye, and fell
fainting to the ground.
Though frogs never pay milliner's
or tailor's bill, yet no creatures follow
so many fashions. No spring, sum-
mer, autumn and winter for them.
They put on new suits every two
weeks, and what woman would not
delight in this arrangement?
There are people who go away to
spend the summer by locking the
front door, pulling down the blinds
and living, no one knows how. The
frog retires for whole season, living
on his own resources-only to save
Goals and light he selects the win
ter.
When the frog has Matched fam
lily of tadpoles into the world his beau
ty fades, he becomes old and wrinkled,
and the country people thinks he is a
toad. One of the quaint fables of
Esop relates how they elected a king,
showing certainly human sense; but
! the old legend of Latona passing by a
p,nd # water, and STOPPING to quench
her thirst, some rude pumpkins on
the bank so muddied it that she could
not drink it, and, waving her wand,
she changed them into frogs, is much
prettier.
The frog, too, has been celebrated
in song, poetry, sacred history and the
Koran. Two thousand years ago Ar
istophanes brought frog people onto
the stage, and a poem attributed to
Homer relates of the battle between
the frogs and mice. Then, too, frogs
gave Moses and his people good deal
of trouble in Egypt once, which might
have all been avoided if they had fall
EN- to eating them, as we do now.
And the Koran relates that"when the
Chaldeans cast Abraham into the
flames the frogs spat into and extin-
guished the fire. Therefore, says Mo-
manned, respect the frog for having
saved the patriarch.
A learned Swiss physician as early
as 1926, Tcheachzer, discovered the
petrifed skeleton of a frog, and de-
clared it to be an antediluvian man.
It is strange but true that this i'm
preston prevailed in the scientific
world for century, until Cuyier, the
great French naturalist, exposed it.
Then the scholars retorted by naming
the petrifaction after the learned
Swiss scientist who had fooled the
world for full century.
When the summer sun breathes
his warm rays on the surface of the
water Mrs. Frog will sit for hours
talking and lulling to sleep her 500
spawny offsprings with all the watch
full care of a mother everher first born
as she toddlcs it on her knee, cooling
it to slumber. Yet he has his enc
mics. Science persecutes him. They
will Jump into the mouths of snakes.
Hawks love them as chickens, and
owls solemnly wink, blink andpounce
down upon them at night.
But the epicurean! With what
delight will he hail his arrival! A
French cook in Napoleon'S time real
lied a fortune of 100000 francs from
his famous frog pies. In Illinois and
the north of Ohio are several large
ponds where these chickens of land
and water are reared and fed for the
market. These are the fat, Jack-Fal-
staff-looking sort of fellows that one
sees at the game-dealer's and restau'
rateur's. Frogs are good fried, stew
ed, with cream-sauce and in pies.
Boys, now get your spears and red
rags and catch the luscious, JUICY deli