B Y THE WA YSJDE 
birds to avoid soiling their plumage, 
when engaged in their scavenger work. 
The great Condor of South America has, 
just below this naked area, a necklace of 
the whitest of fluffv down, and in addi- 
tion the male has a large wattle of skin 
upon the front of the head. Wherever 
the skin of the head and neck is parti}' 
bare, ornamentation often takes the form 
of manv-shaped and often highly colored 
whistles, such as we see highly devel¬ 
oped in a King Vulture. 
PORTRAIT of a king vulture 
The length of the neck of birds is often 
correlated with that of the legs—a long- 
legged bird of necessity requiring a long 
neck to permit its hill to reach the 
ground. Geese and swans are an excep¬ 
tion, and in their case we find that the 
long, mobile neck is of great use in mak¬ 
ing up for the awkwardness ot their 
waddle when on land, and in allowing 
them to reach beneath them while float¬ 
ing in shallow water, thus feeding along 
the bottom.—C. William Beebe in “The 
Bird” 
7 5 
NATURE STUDY DEPARTMENT 
Tadpoles. 
[Teachers of Nature Study, pupils and 
subscribers to the Wayside are invited 
to write out this and the following les¬ 
sons of the series and send them to the 
writer in care of the editor.] 
At this time of year, the life history of 
the toad or frog will furnish a most fas¬ 
cinating study. Search for the eggs on 
the first warm spring days after the ani¬ 
mals’ spring songs are heard. The eggs 
are about the size of a large pin head, 
dark on one side and covered with a 
jelly. Toads’ eggs are deposited in long 
strings, frogs’in masses;both are attached 
to the stems of plants in shallow water. 
The former develop more rapidly. Hav¬ 
ing found the eggs, estimate the number 
in a laying. What of the entire mass as 
compared with the size of the adult? 
Suggest a reason for the enormous num¬ 
bers. What is the use of the gelatinous 
covering? 
Take home a few eggs; keep them in 
an aquarium or shallow dish. There 
should he a sloping bottom of clear sand 
and a few stones and water plants. Try 
to imitate nature as closely as possible 
in providing a place for the development 
of the eggs. Watch them carefully and 
make brief notes on the changes as they 
appear, using a hand lens. Make an en¬ 
larged drawing of a single egg when they 
are first obtained; make a drawing each 
dav until the young tadpoles hatch. 
What is their first food? After this is 
used up, find out what the polliwogs eat 
and how they get this food? What does 
his teach you as to their usefulness in 
natural bodies of water? 
If time allows, the development of the 
Continued from page 76. 
