The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-02-04
THE WONDERS OF NATURE.
eARNuM ON THE GROWTH OF FROGS.
How the ToRds Catch FIies-Comets Have
tho III CHEST Record in the Worlds
Speed Glass The Ether
That Fills space.

was Gaylord Clark, famous litterateur in
the days of our fathers. They were
well-matched pair OF practical jOkers.
One day when Mr.. Clark dropped in at the
museum, as was his custom, Mr.. Barnum,
apparently much excited, hurried his
friend into the private office and said:
Gaylord, | was about TO send for you.
/ want your advice. l have chance to
purchase the most wonderful OF all zoolog-
zeal freaks It's at first a perfect fish,
then it changes to four-legged land ami
NAL, then it climbs trees and"
Bah! you're joking" interjected Mr..
Clark.
"On my honor, / ain not" impress
sively replied the Snowman; "but the ex-
pense."
80 hang the expense" interrupted Mr..
Clark, brimful of enthusiasm over the
business project of his friend; iii you
can get any such freak as that your
fortunes made But what's the thing
called?n
"Well," replied Mr.. Barnum, with just
the faintest suggestion OF twinkle in his
ltlI eye IL btlOllS5 W Atliii-
lily of animals, and in the vernacular is
called the--the-tadpo,e."
OF course most people know that frogs
and toads are evolved from tadpo!es. but
there are some very strange things about
these batrachians that possibly YOU don't
know. Because this changeling is so well
known to nearly everybody it may be dis
missed by saying that it is born with gills
and lives entirely under water until it
reaches the transformation period then
lungs appear in place Of the gills, the tail
drops off, legs sprout out, and an animal
fitted to live on land is the result.
The toad, which is one product of the
tadpole, has some wonderful peculiarities.
Did you ever see this clumsy and rather
lazy-looking hopper in the act OF catching
fly? He darts his tongue out several
inches, so quickly that you can hardly see
it, and with all its activity the fly hasn't
the ghost of chance to escape. How
does the toad do this? You may have
heard the saying that a termagant's tom
que is hung in the middle and thus wagS
at both ends. In the case of the toad the
tongue is hung exactly the reverse of the
human tongue, that is to say, the fasten-
ing is at the front OF the jaw, while the
loose end hangs backward to the throat.
Now when the lazy toad sights a fly he
works his way up to 1t slowly, until he
gets within range for his tongue shoot
Then he suddenly opens his mouth, the
tongue fles out like a line from a fishing
pole, it strikes the fly. and glutinous
substance on the tongue holds the victim
:. :. l,,,,,.>,1 he 4nalir
cious mouth.
Another strange thing about the toad is
that if it's mouth be kept open the animal
will suilocate. This is because it has no
ribs and no means OF dilating its chest,
and therefore 1t must swallow air as 1t
swallows It's food. III its mouth be forci-
bly, kent open the air will pass TO the
stomach instead of entering tho lungs.
There is one variety OF toad that has no
tongue at all 1t inhabits dark places III
Guiana and Surinam The way IN which
the eggs of this animal are Matched Is as
wonderful rs its lingual popularity. The
male toad places the eggs in little pits on
the back of his spouse and atfiXes lid Tor
each PIT. Then the female goes about her
household duties something in the style of
an Indian squaw with a papOose strapped
upon her back. After some DAYS little
toadlets are Matched from the eggs Oh the
maternal back, and when they are strong
enough they force the lids oil the pits and
hop out
1t is a wonderful sight to see woman
of average height with hair so long that it
reaches to her feet but what would you
think OF hair switch 2O0,0O0.O00 miles
long? Those erratic celestial adventures
called comets are so named because the
ancients thought they resembled the flow
ing hair OF woman. These switches
in the sky have been seen 100 degrees
long, which is more than tine distance
from the zenith TO the horizon. In the
olden time the appearance of a comet was
dreadful event The strange visitant
struck terror to the hearts of ignorant and
supcrstitious people because twas thought
TO be a sign OF the wrath of Jehovah. and
that it presaged war, pestilence or famine.
/ was also a thing OF dread because OF fear
that it might run into the earth and
knock all things terrestrial into smithers.
But thanks to scientific research. in
these latter days we know that the fam
ing comet is as harmless as a snowflake.
The constituents OF comet are practically
the same that are found in all the nebu-
lus matter in space. In fact, it is not far
out of the way to say that comets are sim
ply masses OF nebulie moving in orbits
around our sun, and it is quite probable
that the o.her millions of suns or stars are
similarly visited by the strange specters.
The fact that stars can be seen through
the nucleus or head of a comet clearly
demonstrates that it is not solid body.
1t is thought by astronomers that the mass
OF a comet is so light that Its weight is far
less than that of the earth's atmosphere.
Ii is probable thG the extreme tenuity of
comets accounts lor the eccentricity OF
their orbits.
They don't pass around the sun at a
really uniform distance from it, but they
often approach very near in rounding our
great luminary, and then reach away into
space so far that some don't return in hun
dreds and even in thousands of years.
But when it comes to fast travelling the
comet has no successful rival. Our earth
is pretty lively traveller, covering good
deal more than million mi es day in
its journey around the sun. But a comet,
when paying its respects to the sun, would
travel at a rate that would make the
earths gate relatively about like that of a
weary tramp when passed by the "Chi-
cago limited" on the Pennsylvania rail-
road.
In the vaar 1919 conat visited the