Common Bullfrog — Part 4

Rana catesbiana Shaw

The Bullfrog feeds upon the insects and other small life of the pond, as has been stated. But this does not make up the greater part of his food. He is the green dragon of the pond to the fish, the small turtles, the young water-birds, and, alas, to the frogs also. The Bullfrog will eat any moving object that he can swallow or partially swallow. It does not take long to find out the cannibalistic traits of this frog, and to learn that we must not keep a large specimen in the same place with smaller frogs. When we open the collecting-pail on arriving home from a trip to the pond, we learn our lesson, for several of the smallest frogs have disappeared, and the feet and legs of one of the largest are protruding from the capacious mouth of the big fellow.

The Bullfrogs are found throughout the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains. They are less common than many other frogs. This is not entirely owing to the many enemies of the adults, i. e. snakes, otters, hawks and owls, herons, turtles, and (at the South) alligators. Nor is it wholly due to the fact that the tadpoles and the young frogs are preyed upon by fish and by all sorts of small enemies of the pond--to say nothing of their own greedy kin. It is probably due in some measure to the fact that their large size has made them especially valuable as food for man, and that their large size, together with their greed, has made them easy of capture. They bring a price of from one to four dollars per dozen at the markets. (Frog hunting is carried on in all parts of the United States. The states supplying the largest amounts for the market are New York, Maryland, Virginia, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and California. This work yields $50,000 annually to the hunters, but threatens the practical extinction of our native frogs. It has been demonstrated on Frog Reserves or "Frog Farms" in Wisconsin, California and elsewhere that frog raising is a practicable and profitable industry. (See Notes on the Edible Frogs of the U. S. Extract from Report of 1897 of the Commissioner of U. S. Fisheries)

The Bullfrog is solitary in habit, except at the breeding-season. This breeding-season is late, extending from the last of May into July. The tadpoles do not develop into frogs during the first season, as do those of the Leopard and Pickerel frogs. It is not until the second season, and sometimes the third, that a Bullfrog tadpole makes its final transformation. (This fact is interesting to persons actually concerned in frog culture.) Giant Bullfrog tadpoles can be found any month in the year. It is perhaps during June and July, however, that most of the final transformations are made.