BREEDING HABITS OF FROGS AND TOADS 
Few phenomena in animated nature are more marvellous 
than the development of ordinary frogs and toads, in the 
course of which a creature to all intents and purposes a 
vegetable-feeding fish becomes transformed into a carni- 
vorous reptile. In all the ordinary frogs and toads of 
Europe, Asia, and North America, the process of develop- 
ment may, very briefly, be described as follows: The eggs, 
which are enveloped in a glutinous matrix, are deposited 
in large masses in water, and in due course develop into 
the familiar tadpoles. At first the new-born tadpole affixes 
itself to some convenient object by means of a sucker, but 
in the course of a few days takes to a free-swimming mode 
of existence. In its earliest days it breathes by means 
of external gills, but these are soon replaced by internal 
gills, covered by a gill-flap, and these again by tungs: 
While these changes are going on, the hind-limbs,”' aiid 
afterwards the fore-legs, bud forth from the body, the long 
tail is absorbed, the larval mouth is replaced by the per- 
manent one, and the coiled intestine is shortened and 
straightened. And thus in due course the aquatic, gill- 
breathing, limbless, long-tailed, herbivorous tadpole blossoms 
forth as the terrestrial, lung-breathing, four-limbed, tailless, 
and carnivorous frog or toad, as the case may be. 
If this state of things were common to all the members 
of the group, it would be, as it is, sufficiently marvellous 
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