XXII 

 TADPOLES AND FROGS 



THE season of tadpoles is not a season recognised 

 by housekeepers and gourmets (except in France, 

 where frogs are eaten in April), but one dear to school- 

 boys and all lovers of Nature. The ponds on heaths and 

 in the corners of meadows now show great masses of 

 soft jelly-like balls of the size of a marble, huddled 

 together and marked each by a little black spot at its 

 centre, as big as a rape-seed. This is the " spawn " of 

 our common frog. The spawn of the common toad is 

 very similar, but the black spots are set in long strings 

 of jelly, not in separate balls. The little black body is 

 precisely the same thing as the yellow part of a hen's 

 egg, and the jelly around it corresponds to the " white" of 

 the bird's egg ; but there is nothing to represent the 

 shell. The " yelk " of the bird's egg is, it is true, much 

 larger, but corresponds to the black sphere of the frog's 

 egg the actual germ and is like the latter a single 

 protoplasmic cell, distended with nourishing granular 

 matter. It is the excess of this matter which makes the 

 yellow ball of the bird's egg so much bigger than the 

 black or rather deep-brown germ of the frog. The little 

 black spheres elongate from day to day in the warm 

 spring weather, and at last the minute tadpoles (see 

 Fig. 43 and its explanation) break loose from the jelly, 



