The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-07-03
FROG IS A CHRONIC JOKER
II Is Natures Lightning Development
a

is nowhere on record that the
allegation, 'the funniest things
- frog. has ever been denied, al
though there is no evidence that
the man who made it really knew how
FUNNY frog actually is. The observer
noticed, OF course, that a frog is so
quilt that all the neck it has is the top
of its head. He couldn't have failed to
observe, either, that the frogs mouth
begins where its shoulders leave off,
II the .appreciative observer didn't note
the fact that when the frog sits down
1t is apt, If it doesn't watch out, to
poke its eye out with its big toe. he
failed 20 take in one of the frogs neat
est bits of humor. And when it dawn
ed upon him, as dawn upon him 1t
must have, that the frog wears the
drum OF its ears on the outside of its
mead, the drum being fastened to the
gable end of the frogs upper jaw. he
was naturally satisfied that no further
evidence was necessary.
He should have gone back to the
time when the frog was but an atom,
cruising along the border of some
marshy pond, where the muskrat bur-
rows among the bogs and the wild
flag waves its lances to the passing
breeze. He should have sought out
that glutinous molecule, He never
would have believed that one day that
log swapping at flies and voicing
basso profundo serenades to the Silly
night. But that is just what the glob-
ule is there for.
The frogs idea of fun is to do num-
Der of interesting lightning changes.
Its masterpiece as a molecular come
dian, and its last act in that line OF
business, is to transform itself into the
living likeness of a mulberry. 1t is
while making this display of itself that
the creature is preparing for one of its
drollest surprises, and it next appears
in the lively and grotesque character
Of fish that has a mouth with rows
of teeth in it, like a shepherds; two
other mouths, each like suckers; the
tail Of an eel; nostrils three times as
big as any of its mouths; pair of gills
that branch from its head like the
antlerS of a deer; the heart of a fish,
and the digestive organs of a grass
hopper. All three of the frogs mouths
are at the bottom of its chin, the one
equipped with teeth being in the middle
of the row.
In due time there are other changes
in the bill. First, the frog in its char
acter of pollywog calls in the antler-
like gills an dstows them away inside
of it's head somewhere. Then it springs
a couple of legs on the spectator. They
sprout out from each side of the frogs
pOQy, just alt Spot where the
gills soaked in: and the one who has
no idea yet how funny the frog can be
viii more than likely exclaim: Hill
There's his forelegs!''
That is evidently just what the frog
wants the observer to think, for it adds
to the surprise it has in store for him
when it suddenly sprouts another pair
of legs, and the observer finds that, al
though the first ones had their roots
close behind the pollywog's ears, they
were, nevertheless, its hind legs, and
the new legs pop out-in front of them
and are, of course, themselves the fore
legs. This joke of the frog is so good
that froggy adds still another change
to it's makeup, so that it can itself en-
joy the joke. This is the metamorpho-
sis of the three mouths into one mouth,
that reaches clear across the polly
wog's face, and the wiggler looks up
| and smiles an expansive smile.
During all the time that the frog
masquerades as poliywog it gorges
itself on a vegetable diet; and if it had
been scooped out of the water and kept
out a few minutes death would have
claimed 1t for its own. But when the
frog has exhibited its leg show to its
satisfaction, it trades off its gills for a
pair of lungs, changes its fish heart for
the heart of reptile, discards its
grasshopper internal arrangement for a
set OF dlgeSterS or Inc carnlyorouS or
der, hauls itself out of the water on to
| a bog or upon the shore among the
rushes and cocks its bullying eye at
| the observer in a rollicking way, plain
| " informing him thereby that it would
be pleased to know what he thinks Of
| it now as a fullblown lizard.
The frog hasn't a thing with it now
that it started In with as a pollywog
except its tail. II hasn't been long a
landlubber, though, before it begins to
hump its back, and to develop further
| the mouth that is to become the great
| attraction of its features as a finished
frog. While its mouth is eneroaching
on the space between its nose and its
! shoulders, and the hump on its back
looms up higher and higher on the hor-