FROG. l6l 



After the disappearance of the gill-plumes, proper lungs are 

 developed inside the body, and the animal changes from a fish- 

 like water-breather to an air-breather, in preparation for a life 

 on land. When all the legs are well out the form of the tadpole 

 soon changes to that of the Frog, except that it has a long tail 

 You may read in some books that the tail is shed, but this is a 

 mistake that no one could make who has watched day by day 

 the evolution of the Frog from the tadpole. The tail is absorbed; 

 it gets smaller daily, until finally the hind body is rounded off 

 and there is nothing left to indicate that it once ended in a tail. 

 Ultimately the Frog may attain a length of head and body 

 equal to four inches. 



Mr. E. S. Goodrich, F.R.S., has recently demonstrated that 

 eggs obtained from a female Frog by dissection can be fertilised 

 by the leucocytes or colourless corpuscles of the blood. He 

 exhibited a fatherless Frog, so obtained, before the Linnean 

 Society in November, 1918. 



When all the tadpoles have become real little Frogs, with 

 their legs sufficiently firm to enable them to indulge in hopping 

 exercises, they still for a time venture no further than the very 

 shallow water at the extreme edge of the pond, where they can 

 walk partially submerged. Then one day there comes a heavy 

 summer rain storm a deluge on a small scale. Every little 

 Frog then appears to hear the word " Go ! " for with one impulse 

 they all scramble out of the pond into the jungle of wet grass, 

 they know not whither. If there is a road near, that is the place 

 in which to form an idea of their prodigious numbers. The few 

 wayfarers who may be hurrying along that road, looking for 

 possible shelter from the pitiless rain, and seeing the Frogs 

 hopping along much as the raindrops bounce, are quite prepared 

 to declare that they came down from the clouds with the rain. 

 Many persons who in the ordinary affairs of life would be re- 

 garded as reliable witnesses have testified that this is what 

 happens. To them it seems a much more reasonable explanation 



A.L. M 



