"I have a picture."
"Hear they can fake anything with those photographs."
"This would be hard to do. I admit I've not lived as long as you—"
"Don't be insulting me!"
"I certainly meant it respectfully; however, I like to show you the picture. My father sent it to me, he said a man he knew called Darwin is an explorer, not of the mountains, such as you men are, but of the animal world."
"Darwin! We've heard of him. He's been in the West looking at some of our animals. Fact is, old Jess here guided him along the Snake River in Idaho. Darwin told Jess he wanted to go because he'd heard there were some rare amphibians there. Didn't he Jess?"
"Yep, for an Easterner he was quite a fellow. He said he was recording everything he could find out about the animals and the amphibians--for posterity. I reckoned that the "posterity" would learn a lot from his books and drawing. It took a whole mule just to cart them along. He used a funny box he called a camera and he drew pictures and wrote pages and pages of explanations. Is he the one that said there was such a thing as a painted frog.?"
"He's the one. I never met him, but my dad did. Dad said that Darwin must have been fun to travel with, because when the man in the government said Darwin probably was the victim of a prank and Professor Blass, a well-known scientist, who was there to appraise the items Darwin brought back , agreed, Dad said that Darwin did not get mad, he just asked them if they had any idea how many natives it would take to hold all those frogs still while someone else painted them?"
"Dad said the exhibit had about two hundred painted frogs. Darwin had started out with only twenty or so, but you know about frogs, so you can believe they just kept multiplying."
"Let's see that picture. If it really was found by Darwin, we mountain' men may have something to learn yet." growled Hank. He didn't want to believe in painted frogs, but he didn't want to make Jess upset by disagreeing with Darwin.
"Darwin named them that. He said there wasn't any other name that would describe them as well. He also gave them a scientific name. "I'll never be able to remember nor pronounce it, but did he use a special name to place them in the scientific journals."
"What did he use for the journals?" asked Jess.
These particular painted frogs have three such unreal names (that's why they'll always be called painted frogs by me) The main species is called Melanophryniscus."
If you and Darwin say so." said Jess. He never had questioned the name of the species he'd help Darwin classify in the United States. "The Melanophryniscus had been found only in the Buenos Aires Province of Argentina. However, as the large cities of Buenos Aires and Bahia Blanca grew they forced the wild animals to go out further in the unsettled territories."
"These frogs that are in these pictures are from the province of San Luis, a distance from Buenos Aires. They are a sub-species named Melanophryniscus Stelzneri Stelzerni. The coloring is the same. Its black body is spotted red on the under side and its back has large yellow splotches. The four toes of each foot are spotted red. They look like little red stars."
"Pretty aren't they?" asked Jess. The others nodded.
"Darwin said they have a little trick they pull whenever someone captures them. He said they play dead, pulling their legs tight to the body and the body becomes very rigid."
"Wow, smart little fellows aren't they?"
"Yes, because most people react by dropping the frog quickly and those little fellows hop briskly out of range."
"Bet the people who dropped them feel foolish." said Pete. The others laughed.
"Probably, but most laugh and scramble after them, trying to capture them again."
"Do they croak like our frogs?"
That's different also. The first few times you hear them you think you are hearing the trilling and rolling notes of the wild canaries. The singing becomes more interesting just before a rain--or during the courting season.
"As long as we are learning about the painted frog, can you tell us what they eat?" asked Hank. His curiosity overcame his disbelief.
"Much like our frogs. They like small insects, plant lice, cockroaches and even winged ants. However, even frogs are choosy, they won't eat common ants.
"I'd pass on ants, myself. Is there anything else that's interesting?" "To me it is. I have trouble remembering that the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere are exactly opposite as far as seasons are concerned. July there is the coldest month and December is the warmest."
"What's that got to do with frogs," asked Hank.
"These frogs, just like ours, are born in the early summer. Spring there is September and October, so these frogs are born in late November or early December.
"I'll admit the world is very different in different places. I know that is true; but if you hadn't said that Darwin had found these frogs I wouldn't have believed your story. However, I trust Darwin and if he says so, then I believe these are real frogs."
"Guess we could say, "Seeing is believing."
