60 LITTLE FOLKS 
MY LITTLE NEIGHBOR IN GREEN 
I have a curious little neighbor who always wears a green coat, 
and has some droll ways. 
The coat is not plain green, either ; it is relieved by wavy 
black stripes, and gorgeously trimmed with three bands of gold- 
color down the back. Then he has a most dainty vest of gray, 
green pantaloons (very tight), and a pair of gold spectacles. 
He is a very dignified person, and his gold " specs " make him 
look as wise as an owl. 
I said he was my neighbor, and he is ; for he lives in a pond 
not far off. I suppose if you should see him sitting there on the 
bank, some morning, you would call him a Frog; but that isn't his 
" Sunday-go-to-meeting," scientific name. You don't suppose the 
wise men who give such hard names to all the innocent little crea- 
tures in the world (names that are always printed in italics, and 
you " skip ") have neglected our little green friend, do you ? 
By no means ! He belongs to the Batrachian family. I 
wonder how he'd like it — if he knew it. 
A droll thing about this little fellow is, that when he was a 
baby he wasn't a little frog, but a little fish. He had a tail and 
gills, and swam around in the water like other fish. He was called 
a tadpole, and ate vegeta-ble matter. 
As he grew, a wonderful change came over him. In the first 
place, his gills withered away. After a while a pair of legs burst 
out of his skin. They grew quite long, and then another pair 
burst out in front of the first ones, and he became the possessor of 
a tongue. The next thing that happened was, his long tail shrank 
away, his lungs developed, and at last he hopped out of the water 
a perfect frog — batrachian, I mean. 
If you think this too strange to be true, you can see the whole 
thing for yourself. Any time in the spring, go to the nearest frog- 
pond, where you will find plenty of the eggs floating on the 
surface. Gather a few, and put them in water. If you have an 
aquarium, put them in that, or in a globe with gold-fish, or even 
in a common dish. Then keep close watch of them, and you'll 
see all these wonders. 
I need not tell you anything about the voice of this little 
neighbor in green, for I am sure you've often heard it, in the 
