1 76 THE HAUNTS OF LIFE 



look for the clumps of jelly-like eggs, take 

 them home and keep them in a properly shaded 

 vessel, and we can follow the whole fascinating 

 story. But we must be careful to keep water- 

 plants growing in our aquarium, that the water 

 may be aerated, to supply food, but to remove 

 all decaying matter, and to provide a foothold 

 for the little creatures when they are about to 

 make their great change from the tadpole to 

 the frog stage. 



All the members of the group have in their 

 full-grown state the great characteristic of adult 

 terrestrial animals they breathe, by means 

 of lungs, the oxygen in the air. But the young 

 of almost all of them have gills and breathe 

 the oxygen dissolved in water. The time the 

 tadpole breathes by gills may be longer in one 

 family than another, it may even vary in the 

 same family, according to surroundings and 

 weather, but, long or short, it is very rarely 

 omitted. 



Another fact that shows the direction in 

 which they are tending is that even the adults 

 are not all equally terrestrial in habit. Both 

 frogs and toads spend some time in the water 

 in spring, and leave it when their eggs are 

 safely deposited. But as winter approaches, 



