What can we do to give this victim of geese and small boys a certain human interest, and win for him from the boys respect and friendship, rather than pelting? Let us look at him. We have described the colors of his skin, which is smooth, having no scales or plates. The yellow color is laid upon the bronze-green ground in stripes and spots, the stripes extending from the nose to the end of the back with a shorter stripe on each side. The front feet or hands are divided into four fingers, and the front legs are much shorter, smaller, and weaker than the hind ones, which are largely developed, and are used in swimming and leaping. The feet of the hind legs are webbed and have five fingers or toes. The frog has a backbone, but no ribs. As he is ribless he cannot expand and contract his chest in breathing, so that he must swallow what air he wants. In swallowing air he must close his mouth and take the air in only by the nostrils; therefore, oddly enough, if his mouth is forcibly kept open he may be smothered.[64] The frog’s breathing is partly through its skin, which gives off carbonic acid gas; and moisture is as needful to a frog’s skin as to the gills of a fish.[65] The frog likes damp, rainy weather, and is as fond as a child of playing in a puddle. As soon as rain falls out come the frogs. The frog’s skin absorbs moisture, which it stores up in an internal reservoir. When a frog is alarmed by being suddenly seized, it ejects some of this water. People have fancied that such water was poisonous, but it is not. Frogs have no poison sacs, and no weapons. Toads also give out a fluid from the skin. Open our frog’s mouth. There are a few tiny teeth on the upper jaw and palate; these are for partially grinding up horny insects. See this odd tongue; it is fastened at the front end to the mouth, and the hinder part is free and hangs down the creature’s throat. This tongue is covered with a glue-like secretion, and when an insect is to be captured the tongue is snapped forward from the mouth, and the insect adheres as to bird-lime. Some frogs have cheek-pouches, and some drum-like throat-plates, wherewith to make their loud croak.