The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1895-03-20
MUSIC OF THE FROGS.
The Operettas OF the swamps Are All Love
Storiea. r.

9 mO01S.Sr bGIC. ftS1Ss
The Operettas OF the swamps Are All Love
Stories.
When the frog wishes to express
his JOY, he bursts forth into song
He lifts up his voice and makes the
woodland ring. Only the male frogs
sing. The females constitute the
audience, who sit in the front row
and enjoy the music, and it is the
speckled green frog who is the prime
soloist of the woods.
These operettas only take place at
night, and the performance begins
about $3.50, after an overture by the
katydids and the early mosquitoes.
The frog, however, does not come
out upon the stage with a roll Of
music in one hand and SNUG smirk
on his face. Neither does he proceed
to scatter sand upon the floor from
cornucopia and preface his per-
Torrance with song and dance,
after the manner Of vaudeville art
lists.
He Jumps right into the middle Of
his song without even a preliminary
bow to the front row in the audience,
and after a succession of short, sharp
notes uttered in quick succession he
lets it go at that Then he may re-
ceive either an encore or be the OBJ
jective point of antique eggs or bits
of stone from the hands of some OF
his auditors, in which latter case he
makes a rapid dive beneath the Wa
ters and is lost to sight.
Who has not heard the sweet mu-
steal strains Of a specified frog ring
ing out On the calm evening air, i'm
mediately succeeded by a "ker-
chunk" as he disappears beneath
the wave? That happens when his
song fails to meet with appreciation.
There are always other frogs about
when these songs are sung. Most Of
them are females; otherwise there
would be no song, for male frog
singing to his fellows would not be
allowed to get much further than
the first two bars.
Stories have been told of a frog in
the darkness who, seeing others of
his kind whom he took for ladies,
burst forth into loud melodious notes
of joy and was suddenly cut short in
his musical career by a shower of
missiles from indignant male frogs
whose meditations he had disturbed.
This only happens to the young
bucks of the frog tribe, for the older
heads are too shrewd to make fools
of themselves when there are any
other than female frogs about.
One of the extraordinary things
about frog music is the fact that the
frog keeps his mouth closed when he
is singing. It will therefore be seen
that it would be useless to tell him
to "shut up" He can sing through
his skin, He is provided with a pair
Of resonant chambers like drums,
and he makes his music by swapping
his muscles against these distended
membranes. Then he can breathe
through his skin and supply all the
wind that is necessary without OPEN
ing his mouth. Handel, in his rs
rael In Egypt" has initiated in a
passage of the aratorio the motions
and leapings Of the frogs,
A French scientist, after long lis
tening in the woods, has made oat
and reduced to writing the song Of
the frog, or Swamp music" as he
calls it, and has discovered that the
frog repertory is varied and extern
sive. Frogs can carry on converse
ton at long distances and can com
municate to each other emotions of
fear or hunger. Their songs, how
ever, are all love songs, and, as has
been said, are only INDUCED in when
there are female frogs about. It is
then that the frog distends his drums
to their utmost, throwing his head
well back and his legs far apart and
raising his voice, as it is called, to the
very highest pitch of the musical
scale. A big, old, green frog can
thus make himself heard for a dis
lance of moro than two miles, and
the French savant who has studied
the subject says that the females are
by this performance thrown into &C.
stasies Of delight.
The song of the frog has thus been
registered by the French sayant:
"Brekeke- brekeke, krekete! Kpte.
too-oo-ool Brekete! Breketel Bre-
kete, kwrr, brekete, too-oo!" This
closely resembles the famous cry Of
the Yale college students, taken from
the frog song Of the Aristophanes,
and which is heard at every football
match. It is supposed to express
frog joy Of the uttermost. Science
en- Famille.