A GARDEN DIARY 189 



MAY 8, 1900 



13 ETURNING to our pond this morning to 

 -1-^- see whether the water-lilies propose flower- 

 ing this season, I find that the frogs have 

 been depositing spawn along its edges, so that 

 the thongs of Irish leather may become necessary 

 sooner than I expected ! 



All the same I am delighted to see the frog- 

 spawn, for I have an affection for tadpoles. Youth- 

 ful associations cluster pretty thickly around them, 

 but apart from such a merely sentimental attach- 

 ment, there is a satisfaction, I may say a zoologic 

 thrill, about this transition of a water - living 

 and water-breathing animal into an air-breathing 

 one ; a transition going on, moreover, not at some 

 remote, and more or less dubious geologic age, but 

 under one's very eyes, even, as in this case, in the 

 middle of one's own decorous, shaven lawn. 



It is difficult to remember that frogs breathe 

 air as much as we do ourselves. Unlike our- 

 selves, and their other zoologic betters, they do 

 so, however, not by alternate contractions and 



