CHAPTER II 

 TOADS AND TADPOLES 



While the Hfe-history of most of the backboned 

 animals shows no such startling transformations or met- 

 amorphoses as that of the insects we have studied, yet 

 among toads, frogs, and salamanders, forming the class of 

 backboned animals known as amphibians or batrachians, 

 there is an interesting and well-marked metamorphosis. 

 A newly hatched bird is much smaller and weaker than 

 its parents, its feathers are different, and it usually has to be 

 cared for and fed for some time, but it is unmistakably bird- 

 like in appearance, and its development to adult form is 

 gradual and without startling changes. The same is true 

 of kittens and puppies, or young lions or camels, and true, 

 also, for the most part, of fishes and of snakes and lizards. 

 But the young toad or frog, which we call tadpole, looks, 

 and truly is, much more like a fish than like its parent, 

 and therefore in its growth and development it undergoes 

 a marked transformation. 



The eggs and hatching. — In the spring, April and 

 May, the frogs and toads begin their croaking and trill- 

 ing, and then is the time to look in the ponds for the eggs. 

 Indeed the ponds had better be watched as soon as the 

 ice goes out. Hunt in the shallow water along the banks. 

 Toads' eggs lie in long strings of a gelatinous, jelly-like 

 substance, usually wound about submerged sticks or the 

 stems of water-plants, while those of the frog are found 

 in small bunches or masses of the jelly. They are small, 



27 



