[65] See Nature Reader, No. 3, Lesson 40. [66] Our large bull-frog is eight or twelve inches long. Frogs even one or two feet long (Holder’s Zoölogy) have been found, but such a size is very unusual. LESSON XXXII. THE FROG’S COUSIN. “Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which like a toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.” --_As You Like It._ Belonging to the same class of vertebrates as the frog, to the same order also, but to a different sub-order, are the toads, the cousins of the frogs. As the frog is well known about the ponds, so the toad is a constant inhabitant of our groves and gardens. We introduce the frog to an admiring public as Mr. Rana, the toad as Mr. Bufo. The order to which the frogs and toads belong is divided according to the structure of the base of the skull and the shape of the shoulder girdle. In general anatomy the frogs and toads are alike. The eggs and young are closely similar, and the stages of growth from egg to the adult form are nearly identical. When the adult form is reached the frogs and toads are yet very tiny creatures, but small as they are the most casual observer can distinguish them from each other by the shape of the snout, and by the far larger development of the hind-legs of the frog. The chief differences to be noted between Mr. Rana and his cousin, Mr. Bufo, are these: the toad has no teeth, but the frog, as we have seen, has teeth on the upper jaw and palate. The attachment of the tongue is the same, but the free end of the frog’s tongue is forked, and the toad’s is not. The toad’s skin is usually warty, the frog’s is smooth; the toad has a rounder body, shorter hind-legs, and its feet are less fully webbed; its snout is more rounded than that of the frog. We find, let us say, a toad and a frog in our morning ramble. We notice the soft, moist skin and say, “These are amphibians.” We see that they are tailless, and we say they are anurans, or tailless amphibians. Then having placed them together thus far, we note their differences, and we say of the frog, “This belongs to the Ranidæ,” and of the smaller cousin, “Here is one of the Bufonidæ.” Of the two, we may find the toad the more interesting animal, as among its kinsfolk are some very remarkable families. Mr. Bufo is a citizen of the world, except of the severely cold polar regions. He hops through the tropics and the temperate zones, and goes pretty well up into the polar regions; an inoffensive, gentle, humble, useful, and generally utterly silent creature. No person is faultless, and Bufo is not superior to humans in that no evil may be laid to his charge. He does eat bees. Happy is Mr. Bufo when, brigand-like, he can stand by the highway of the bees returning laden with wealth of honey and entering their waxen city. He holds his captives for no ransom, he scarcely stays to kill them, but swallows them alive and whole, and digests them later.