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Big Bird-Eating Frogs.

Species of Huge and Voracious Reptiles Haunt Swamps of Pennsylvania.

     A species of bird-eating frog infests the swamps in Susquehanna county, Pa. These huge croakers have also proved destructive to young chickens, says the New York Press.

     A few days since a farmer named Wainwright, of Herrick, had his attention called to the bird-eating propensity of this species of frog by the cries of a small bird in a near-by swamp. Thinking it had been seized by a snake he hastened to the spot, and saw a beautiful red and green bird in the mouth of a large, greenish frog. Only the bird’s head was visible, and its cries becoming fainter, the frog was killed and the bird released. Its feathers were all wet and slimy, and for some days it could be distinguished in the garden by its ruffled plumage.

     Since then others of the same species of frog have, on several occasions, been killed with young chickens half swallowed, and once a duckling was rescued from the same fate.

     The frogs make a cluckling sound so nearly like that of a hen calling her chickens for food that whole broods have been deceived and have rushed toward the swamp, where they supposed the hen to be. The frogs are wary, and it is difficult to find them except by the squeaks of distress from their victims.

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