Pond Life 
beginning of the world. So that, if this 
is true—and it is admitted as true by 
all scientific men—then the tadpoles 
must have been tadpoles all their lives 
at some far-off time, and have lived 
and died in the water without turn- 
ing into frogs at all. Then, perhaps, 
some more adventurous tadpole found 
itself out of its native water—perhaps its 
pond dried up gradually, giving it time 
to make the change into an air-breathing 
instead of a water-breathing creature. 
Those which couldn’t do this would die, 
while those which could would pass on 
the power of doing so to their children ; 
and so a new state of things would arise. 
It is, of course, impossible to guess at 
what really happened, but such a thing 
seems to be likely. They would not 
turn perhaps into frogs all at once; but 
