WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



but such it really is, just as much as the voice 

 of a bird is a song. 



Soon the rushes and under-water plants are 

 hung and roped about with strings of spawn. 

 The eggs of the toad are in long ropes, each 

 consisting of a double line of black specks 

 embedded in a jelly-like substance. Frog's 

 spawn is always in masses, each egg being a 

 ball of jelly with a black centre, which is 

 attached on all sides to other balls. In the 

 strings belonging to the toad the jelly of one 

 egg is merged in that of the next, so that 

 there is no clear line between them. It is 

 just a rope of gelatine with black spots, about 

 the side of the top of a black-headed pin, 

 embedded in it. These black beads are the 

 future tadpoles. Each pair of toads produce 

 anything from three thousand to six thousand 

 eggs — we will say for the sake of argument about 

 five thousand ; and as every pair in the pond 

 does the same you get some idea of the millions 

 of little tadpoles that will presently hatch out ! 

 From this we get some conception too of the 

 great loss of life there must be in the toad 

 world despite the toad's protection from flesh- 

 eating birds and beasts ; for on an average, out 

 of those four thousand or five thousand eggs, 

 106 



