dots are soon to be little living animals; we will see of what kind.



Presently they begin to jerk backwards and forwards, and perform such

simple gymnastics as the small accommodations of the egg will allow; and

at last one morning, to my delight, I find two or three of the little

things free from the egg, and swimming like so many tiny fishes in my

bowl of water. How fast they come out now; five this morning, but twenty

to-night, and thrice as many to-morrow! The next day I conclude that the

remaining eggs will not hatch, for they still show only dull, dead-

looking dots: so reluctantly I throw them away, wash out my bowl, and

fill it anew with pond water. But, before doing this, I had to catch all

my little family, and put them safely into a tumbler to remain during

their house-cleaning. This was hard work; but I accomplished it with the

help of a teaspoon, and soon restored them to a fresh, clean home.



It would be difficult to tell you all their history; for never did

little things grow faster, or change more wonderfully, than they.



One morning I found them all arranged round the sides of the bowl in

regular military ranks, as straight and stiff as a company on dress

parade. It was then that I counted them, and discovered that there were

just sixty-two.



You would think, at first sight, that these sixty-two brothers and

sisters were all exactly alike; but, after watching them a while, you

see that one begins to distinguish himself as stronger and more advanced

than any of the others,--the captain, perhaps, of the military company.

Soon he sports a pair of little feathery gills on each side of his head,

as a young officer might sport his mustache; but these gills, unlike the

mustache, are for use as well as for ornament, and serve him as

breathing tubes.



How the little fellows grow! no longer a slim little fish, but quite a

portly tadpole with rounded body and long tail, but still with no

expression in his blunt-nosed face, and only two black-looking pits

where the eyes are to grow.



The others are not slow to follow their captain's example. Day after day

some new little fellow shows his gills, and begins to swim by paddling

with his tail in a very stylish manner.



And now a sad thing happens to my family of sixty-two,--something which

would never have happened had I left the eggs at home in their own pond;

for there there are plenty of tiny water-plants, whose little leaves and

stems serve for many a delicious meal to young tadpoles. I did not feed

them, not knowing what to give them, and half imagining that they could

live very well upon water only; and so it happened that one morning,

when I was taking them out with a spoon as usual, to give them fresh

water, I counted only fifty. Where were the others?



At the bottom of the bowl lay a dozen little tails, and I was forced to

believe that the stronger tadpoles had taken their weaker brothers for

supper.



I didn't like to have my family broken up in this way, and yet I didn't

at that time know what to give them: so the painful proceeding was not

checked; and day after day my strongest tadpoles grew even stronger, and

the tails of the weaker lay at the bottom of the bowl.



The captain throve finely, had clear, bright eyes, lost his feathery

gills, and showed through his thin skin that he had a set of excellent

legs folded up inside. At last, one day, he kicked out the two hind

ones, and after that was never tired of displaying his new swimming

powers. The fore-legs following in due time; and when all this was done,

the tail, which he no longer needed to steer with, dropped off, and my

largest tadpole became a little frog.



His brothers and sisters, such of them as were left (for, I grieve to

say, he had required a great many hearty meals to enable him to reach

the frog state), followed his illustrious example as soon as they were

able; and then, of course, my little bowl of water was no suitable home

for them; so away they went out into the grass, among the shallow pools,

and into the swamps. I never knew exactly where; and I am afraid that,

should I meet even my progressive little captain again, I should hardly

recognize him, so grown and altered he would be. He no longer devours

his brothers, but, with a tongue as long as his body, seizes slugs and

insects, and swallows them whole.



In the winter he sleeps with his brothers and sisters, with the bottom

of some pond or marsh for a bed, where they all pack themselves away,

hundreds together, laid so closely that you can't distinguish one from

another.



But early in the spring you may hear their loud croaking; and when the

March sun has thawed the ice from the ponds, the mother-frogs are all

very busy with their eggs, which they leave in the shallow water,--round

jelly-like masses, like the one I told you of at the beginning of this

story, made up of hundreds and hundreds of eggs. For the frog mother

hopes for a large family of children, and she knows, by sad experience,

that no sooner are they born than the fishes snap them up by the dozen;

and even after they have found their legs, and begin to feel old, and

competent to take care of themselves, the snakes and the weasels will

not hesitate to take two or three for breakfast, if they come in the

way. So you see the mother-frog has good reason for laying so many eggs.



The toads too, who, by the way, are cousins to the frogs, come down in

April to lay their eggs also in the water,--long necklaces of a double

row of fine transparent eggs, each one showing its black dot, which is

to grow into a tadpole, and swim about with its cousins, the frog

tadpoles, while they all look so much alike that I fancy their own

mothers do not know them apart.



I once picked up a handful of them, and took them home. One grew up to

be a charming little tree-toad, while some of his companions gave good

promise, by their big awkward forms, of growing by and by into great

bull-frogs.