CONCERNING TADPOLES 185 



tadpole phase. Nothing now remains for the youngster 

 but to swim ashore and emerge a frog. 



But its days of fasting are not over. Its first, it will be 

 remembered, was enforced during the time when it hung 

 itself up by means of its suckers to await the appearance 

 of its mouth : till this appeared it lived upon the remains 

 of the food-yolk which formed part of the egg from which 

 it was hatched. During its second it fed upon its tail. 

 Again, with an abundance of food around it eating was 

 impossible, because a new mouth was being fashioned. 

 Henceforth, with a capacious mouth, it is annually reduced 

 to a long period of fasting because there is no food to put 

 into it ! As the chill of autumn passes into winter the frog 

 retreats to the nearest pond or ditch, perhaps the scene of 

 its birth, and there buries itself deep down in the muddy 

 bottom out of the way of frost to await the return of 

 spring in a state of suspended animation. During these long 

 months of fasting the body becomes considerably emaciated. 

 Nevertheless, emerging into the upper world again, the most 

 strenuous period of life — the reproductive period — ^has to be 

 immediately faced, and this fasting. But, to change an old 

 adage, " God tempers the fast to the starving frog." The sus- 

 tenance necessary for the due ripening of the products of the 

 reproductive glands — the sperm and ova — is provided by a 

 pair of " fat-bodies." Biit for these the wretched frog would 

 be reduced to a state of utter exhaustion, such as would 

 prove fatal to most of the individuals called on to face 

 the ordeal, before the eggs and sperms could be shed, and 

 thereby the speedy extinction of the species would follow : 

 for while a few might survive this, the remnant would not be 

 large enough to withstand the toll levied during the rest of 

 the year by predatory animals and other chances of death. 



The life-history of the toad follows a precisely similar 



