The Log of the Sun: A Chronicle of Nature's YearBeebe, William
History
The Log of the Sun: A Chronicle of Nature's Year
Beebe, William
Natural history -- Outdoor books
The ears of the frogs and all higher animals are, like the tongue-bone and
the lower jaw, derived originally from portions of gills, which the
aquatic ancestors of living animals used to draw the oxygen from the
water. This is one of the most wonderful and interesting changes which the
study of evolution has unfolded to our knowledge.
The disproportionate voices are produced by means of an extra amount of
skin on the throat, which is distensible and acts as a drum to increase
the volume of sound. In certain bullfrogs which grow to be as large as the
head of a man, the bellowing power is deafening and is audible for miles.
In Chile a small species of frog, measuring only about an inch in length,
has two internal vocal sacs which are put to a unique use. Where these
frogs live, water is very scarce and the polliwogs have no chance to live
and develop in pools, as is ordinarily the case. So when the eggs are
laid, they are immediately taken by the male frog and placed in these
capacious sacs, which serve as nurseries for them all through their
hatching and growing period of life. Although there is no water in these
chambers, yet their gills grow out and are reabsorbed, just as is the case
in ordinary tadpoles. When their legs are fully developed, they clamber up
to their father's broad mouth and get their first glimpse of the great
world from his lower lip. When fifteen partly developed polliwogs are
found in the pouches of one little frog, he looks as if he had gorged
himself to bursting with tadpoles. To such curious uses may vocal organs
be put.
Turtles are voiceless, except at the period of laying eggs, when they
acquire a voice, which even in the largest is very tiny and piping, like
some very small insect rather than a two-hundred-pound tortoise. Some of
the lizards utter shrill, insect-like squeaks.
A species of gecko, a small, brilliantly coloured lizard, has the back of
its tail armed with plates. These it has a habit of rubbing together, and
by this means it produces a shrill, chirruping sound, which actually
attracts crickets and grasshoppers toward the noise, so that they fall
easy prey to this reptilian trapper. So in colour, sound, motion, and many
other ways, animals act and react upon each other, a useful and necessary
habit being perverted by an enemy, so that the death of the creature
results. Yet it would never be claimed that the lizard thought out this
mimicking. It probably found that certain actions resulted in the approach
of good dinners, and in its offspring this action might be partly
instinctive, and each generation would perpetuate it. If it had been an
intentional act, other nearly related species of lizards would imitate it,
as soon as they perceived the success which attended it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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