Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1891 — A TALE OF THE TAILESS ONES. [ARTICLE]

A TALE OF THE TAILESS ONES.

A New Enterprise. North Union, Southern Walker, and North Western Barkley are now reaping a harvest of frogs which bids fair to exceed any wheat harvest ever garnered in this section of the county. Men, women and children are engaged in this enterprise. Scores of individuals may be seep sallying forth about sunrise with a bucket in one hand and a garden rake in the other, making a bee-line for the nearest marsh or ditch with which the country abounds. This reached the process of tailing the freckled complected Batrachian is as foUows: The ice is first broken into floes, these piece are then floated aside and the little “hoppers” are raked from under their winter bed under the water together with mud, leaves, sticks, sand, snail shells, and occasionally a snake or mud turtle. When landed upon the frozen bank and the cold air strikes against his delicate, motley coat it send an unpleasant chill through his system and he is awakened from his torpidity. Slowly but surely he straightens out his hind legs, scratches open his eyes with his. fore paws and looks about in speechless wonder as though trying to make out who or. what has disturb" him from his happy dream of Sunny Spring days, merry brinks and grassy bowers. But these meditations are soon interrupted. He is ruthlessly seized by eager fingers and thrust into a bucket along with hundreds of his kind. When the buckets are filled the hunters return home. The frogs are then dressed. With a large pair of shears the body is severed midway between the pairs of legs. The stump of a spine is then grasped between the thumb and fiDger of the left hand and with one jerk of the right hand he is not only dressed but undressed. They are then strung upon twine with a darning needle, carried to market at Blackford where they are sold for “spot” cash at the rates of five cents per dozen for common croakers and five cents apiece for bull frogs, to Theodore Hurley, dealer in general merchandise. The average wages made by frog hunters is $2 per day. Nearly S3OO worth have been shipped from Blaokford within the past month.

BILL BAT.