[Contents]CHAPTER XXXVTHE BATRACHIANSAmerican Tree ToadAmerican Tree Toad“I have kept until the last the ugliest and the least esteemed of our helpers, the toad. With it must be classed the frog and the tree-toad because of their close resemblance to it in form and, still more, because of the similar change all three undergo in developing from the egg to the full-grown animal. Common language gives the name of reptile, from a Latin word meaning to creep or crawl, to the snake and the toad, the lizard and the frog, and all similar hairless animals having either no legs at all or very short ones and crawling on the stomach. Science, however, makes a difference; it limits the name reptile to the snake, the lizard, and other animals having a scaly skin and hatching from the egg in the form they are to keep; and it gives the name batrachian (from the Greekbatrachos, a frog) to the toad, frog, tree-toad, and some others, which[274]have a naked skin and whose first shape gives place later to a different one. Reptiles do not undergo a complete change; batrachians do. Just as the butterfly is first a caterpillar, quite different in structure, its way of living, and its diet from what it finally becomes in its perfect state, so the toad, the frog, and the tree-toad begin their existence as tadpoles with none of the structure and habits they are finally to have.“Tadpole or big-head, that is the word to indicate the batrachian in its transitory state. A very large head merging into a plump stomach that ends abruptly in a flat tail—such is the animal in the beginning. It has no limbs, no organs of locomotion unless it be the tail, which whips the water to push the creature forward and serves as oar and rudder at the same time. The toad tadpole is small and entirely black; the frog tadpole is much larger, silvery on the belly and grayish on the back. All tadpoles inhabit still waters, as ponds or pools warmed by the sun; but for toad tadpoles even shallow puddles or wagon-ruts with a few inches of rain will suffice, where they can gather in black rows or stretch themselves flat on the stomach in the tepid mud at the water’s edge. Frog tadpoles, however, thrive best in ponds of some extent, with various water-plants and sufficient depth for diving and swimming. Like fish, tadpoles breathe the air that is in water; and like them, also, they die if kept out of water a short time. Thus they are real fish as far as breathing is concerned. But in their final form batrachians[275]breathe atmospheric air and die of suffocation in water. They are land animals in that state, and breathe like other land animals.“You have very often seen frogs and toads in the water, and no doubt you think they could live there indefinitely. Undeceive yourselves: they go to the water only to lay their eggs or to escape from some danger or to bathe in hot weather, but they could not remain under water any length of time without dying. They have to come up at intervals to breathe, which they do by getting at least the nostrils out. Here we have a difference between the tadpole and the full-grown batrachian, between the larva, so to speak, and the creature at its maturity: the tadpole lives in water and perishes in the air, whereas the frog that comes from it lives in the air and perishes in water.Hylaplesia TinctoriaHylaplesia Tinctoria(A frog-like toad of tropical America)“And there is a still further difference: the tadpole lives exclusively on vegetable matter, its mouth is equipped with a sort of small horny beak to browse the foliage of water-plants, and in its big belly it has a very long intestine coiled about several times so as to prolong the passage of the food through the body and thus make sure that all the juices it may contain are extracted. The mature batrachian exchanges this horny beak for real jaws furnished with irregularities that serve as teeth, it[276]lives solely on an animal diet, especially on insects, and its intestine is short because the food it eats is easy of digestion and readily yields what nourishment it contains.“To turn a tadpole into a frog or a toad it is not enough to change its respiratory and digestive organs; new organs form, organs of which there was not the least sign when the creature was hatched, while still others disappear without leaving any trace. The tadpole is born absolutely without legs. After a while the hind legs appear, later come the fore legs, and still later the tail shrinks and vanishes.”“I remember seeing tadpoles,” said Jules, “some with two legs, some with four; but every one of them had a tail.”“When the tail has disappeared the animal is no longer a tadpole, but a young toad or frog.”“Does the tail come off itself, or does the animal pull it off?” Emile inquired with eager interest.“Neither the one nor the other. The tail is too valuable when the change takes place to be thrown away in that reckless fashion. It contains a store of material suitable for making something else in the bodily organism. When the legs begin to put forth, when the organs of digestion and those of respiration begin to take a new form, these new creations, these transformations, require material with which to build. Fleshy substance is needed for the up-building of the body just as bricks and mortar are needed for the construction of the house. Of course[277]the tadpole eats to make flesh and to provide a reserve for the work of transformation; but this method of accumulation is slow, and therefore, to save time, the organs useless to the future animal are destroyed, bit by bit, and their material is used in the construction of new parts. It is thus that the tail disappears. The blood circulating through it gradually eats it away, dissolves it, as we might say, at the proper time and carries elsewhere the fluid substance, which, turned again into flesh, helps to form the legs or other parts of the remodeled organism.”“What a deal of economy in getting rid of a tadpole’s tail!” exclaimed Emile. “Not a particle of it, even if no bigger than a pin’s head, must be thrown away, for it might be used to make the little toe on one of the feet.”“Yes, my boy, a wonderful economy, an economy careful of every atom of matter in order that life, the divine worker, may not fail to have at its disposal, undiminished by waste, the resources committed to its keeping by the Creator for works that are unceasingly being destroyed and then restored on a new plan.“I should add here that certain batrachians keep the tail as long as they live. To this class belong the salamanders, one species of which, the terrestrial or land salamander, is extremely ugly. In form it is half-way between a toad and a lizard, and its color is black with large bright-yellow spots. It is from one to two decimeters long. It haunts damp places[278]near springs and eats insects and earthworms. Despite its repulsive appearance it is perfectly harmless.“The tadpole of the salamander breathes through fine tuft-like appendages which spread out in the water on each side of the neck. These tufts are called gills, and they correspond to the fish’s breathing organs or gills, which are likewise situated on each side of the neck under the tiny flap commonly called the ear. Tadpoles of the frog and the toad have, for the first few days, fringed gills floating out freely; but in a short time they are drawn in under the skin and become invisible like the gills of fish.“Frogs have a slender form not devoid of a certain grace. Their hind legs are very long and powerful, being especially good at jumping, the frog’s customary mode of progress. First gathering itself together, the animal suddenly relaxes like a spring and throws itself forward by a vigorous thrust of the thighs. The hind toes are very markedly webbed; in other words, they are united by a membrane as are the toes of swimming birds, the duck in particular. This arrangement of the toes so as to form a broad paddle or oar, together with the suppleness of the hind legs, which are alternately drawn up against the sides and then forcibly extended, makes the frog an expert swimmer.“The common or green frog is spotted with black on a green background, and it has three yellowish stripes on the back, the belly also being yellow. It abounds on the banks of all still waters, and to it we[279]owe the noisy croaking that comes from every ditch on a summer evening.“The red frog is spotted with black on a reddish background, and is easily recognizable by the black stripe running from the eye over the ear. It likes cool places such as damp meadows and fields and underbrush. It is less fond of the water than the one just named, and it croaks much less.“Both live on live prey, as for example aquatic larvæ, worms, flies and other insects, and snails, and they never touch vegetable matter; therefore they are good helpers in our gardens.“Tree-toads—or, less correctly, tree-frogs—differ from ordinary frogs in having viscous cushions at the end of their toes, which enable them to climb trees, where they hunt insects. They stay all summer in the foliage and go to the water only to lay their eggs. Their cry, which gains force from a sort of pocket that shows plainly under the throat, is very loud and raucous. The tree-toad that we have around here, the common tree-toad, is of a beautiful delicate green hue on the back and yellowish-white on the belly.”[280]
[Contents]CHAPTER XXXVTHE BATRACHIANSAmerican Tree ToadAmerican Tree Toad“I have kept until the last the ugliest and the least esteemed of our helpers, the toad. With it must be classed the frog and the tree-toad because of their close resemblance to it in form and, still more, because of the similar change all three undergo in developing from the egg to the full-grown animal. Common language gives the name of reptile, from a Latin word meaning to creep or crawl, to the snake and the toad, the lizard and the frog, and all similar hairless animals having either no legs at all or very short ones and crawling on the stomach. Science, however, makes a difference; it limits the name reptile to the snake, the lizard, and other animals having a scaly skin and hatching from the egg in the form they are to keep; and it gives the name batrachian (from the Greekbatrachos, a frog) to the toad, frog, tree-toad, and some others, which[274]have a naked skin and whose first shape gives place later to a different one. Reptiles do not undergo a complete change; batrachians do. Just as the butterfly is first a caterpillar, quite different in structure, its way of living, and its diet from what it finally becomes in its perfect state, so the toad, the frog, and the tree-toad begin their existence as tadpoles with none of the structure and habits they are finally to have.“Tadpole or big-head, that is the word to indicate the batrachian in its transitory state. A very large head merging into a plump stomach that ends abruptly in a flat tail—such is the animal in the beginning. It has no limbs, no organs of locomotion unless it be the tail, which whips the water to push the creature forward and serves as oar and rudder at the same time. The toad tadpole is small and entirely black; the frog tadpole is much larger, silvery on the belly and grayish on the back. All tadpoles inhabit still waters, as ponds or pools warmed by the sun; but for toad tadpoles even shallow puddles or wagon-ruts with a few inches of rain will suffice, where they can gather in black rows or stretch themselves flat on the stomach in the tepid mud at the water’s edge. Frog tadpoles, however, thrive best in ponds of some extent, with various water-plants and sufficient depth for diving and swimming. Like fish, tadpoles breathe the air that is in water; and like them, also, they die if kept out of water a short time. Thus they are real fish as far as breathing is concerned. But in their final form batrachians[275]breathe atmospheric air and die of suffocation in water. They are land animals in that state, and breathe like other land animals.“You have very often seen frogs and toads in the water, and no doubt you think they could live there indefinitely. Undeceive yourselves: they go to the water only to lay their eggs or to escape from some danger or to bathe in hot weather, but they could not remain under water any length of time without dying. They have to come up at intervals to breathe, which they do by getting at least the nostrils out. Here we have a difference between the tadpole and the full-grown batrachian, between the larva, so to speak, and the creature at its maturity: the tadpole lives in water and perishes in the air, whereas the frog that comes from it lives in the air and perishes in water.Hylaplesia TinctoriaHylaplesia Tinctoria(A frog-like toad of tropical America)“And there is a still further difference: the tadpole lives exclusively on vegetable matter, its mouth is equipped with a sort of small horny beak to browse the foliage of water-plants, and in its big belly it has a very long intestine coiled about several times so as to prolong the passage of the food through the body and thus make sure that all the juices it may contain are extracted. The mature batrachian exchanges this horny beak for real jaws furnished with irregularities that serve as teeth, it[276]lives solely on an animal diet, especially on insects, and its intestine is short because the food it eats is easy of digestion and readily yields what nourishment it contains.“To turn a tadpole into a frog or a toad it is not enough to change its respiratory and digestive organs; new organs form, organs of which there was not the least sign when the creature was hatched, while still others disappear without leaving any trace. The tadpole is born absolutely without legs. After a while the hind legs appear, later come the fore legs, and still later the tail shrinks and vanishes.”“I remember seeing tadpoles,” said Jules, “some with two legs, some with four; but every one of them had a tail.”“When the tail has disappeared the animal is no longer a tadpole, but a young toad or frog.”“Does the tail come off itself, or does the animal pull it off?” Emile inquired with eager interest.“Neither the one nor the other. The tail is too valuable when the change takes place to be thrown away in that reckless fashion. It contains a store of material suitable for making something else in the bodily organism. When the legs begin to put forth, when the organs of digestion and those of respiration begin to take a new form, these new creations, these transformations, require material with which to build. Fleshy substance is needed for the up-building of the body just as bricks and mortar are needed for the construction of the house. Of course[277]the tadpole eats to make flesh and to provide a reserve for the work of transformation; but this method of accumulation is slow, and therefore, to save time, the organs useless to the future animal are destroyed, bit by bit, and their material is used in the construction of new parts. It is thus that the tail disappears. The blood circulating through it gradually eats it away, dissolves it, as we might say, at the proper time and carries elsewhere the fluid substance, which, turned again into flesh, helps to form the legs or other parts of the remodeled organism.”“What a deal of economy in getting rid of a tadpole’s tail!” exclaimed Emile. “Not a particle of it, even if no bigger than a pin’s head, must be thrown away, for it might be used to make the little toe on one of the feet.”“Yes, my boy, a wonderful economy, an economy careful of every atom of matter in order that life, the divine worker, may not fail to have at its disposal, undiminished by waste, the resources committed to its keeping by the Creator for works that are unceasingly being destroyed and then restored on a new plan.“I should add here that certain batrachians keep the tail as long as they live. To this class belong the salamanders, one species of which, the terrestrial or land salamander, is extremely ugly. In form it is half-way between a toad and a lizard, and its color is black with large bright-yellow spots. It is from one to two decimeters long. It haunts damp places[278]near springs and eats insects and earthworms. Despite its repulsive appearance it is perfectly harmless.“The tadpole of the salamander breathes through fine tuft-like appendages which spread out in the water on each side of the neck. These tufts are called gills, and they correspond to the fish’s breathing organs or gills, which are likewise situated on each side of the neck under the tiny flap commonly called the ear. Tadpoles of the frog and the toad have, for the first few days, fringed gills floating out freely; but in a short time they are drawn in under the skin and become invisible like the gills of fish.“Frogs have a slender form not devoid of a certain grace. Their hind legs are very long and powerful, being especially good at jumping, the frog’s customary mode of progress. First gathering itself together, the animal suddenly relaxes like a spring and throws itself forward by a vigorous thrust of the thighs. The hind toes are very markedly webbed; in other words, they are united by a membrane as are the toes of swimming birds, the duck in particular. This arrangement of the toes so as to form a broad paddle or oar, together with the suppleness of the hind legs, which are alternately drawn up against the sides and then forcibly extended, makes the frog an expert swimmer.“The common or green frog is spotted with black on a green background, and it has three yellowish stripes on the back, the belly also being yellow. It abounds on the banks of all still waters, and to it we[279]owe the noisy croaking that comes from every ditch on a summer evening.“The red frog is spotted with black on a reddish background, and is easily recognizable by the black stripe running from the eye over the ear. It likes cool places such as damp meadows and fields and underbrush. It is less fond of the water than the one just named, and it croaks much less.“Both live on live prey, as for example aquatic larvæ, worms, flies and other insects, and snails, and they never touch vegetable matter; therefore they are good helpers in our gardens.“Tree-toads—or, less correctly, tree-frogs—differ from ordinary frogs in having viscous cushions at the end of their toes, which enable them to climb trees, where they hunt insects. They stay all summer in the foliage and go to the water only to lay their eggs. Their cry, which gains force from a sort of pocket that shows plainly under the throat, is very loud and raucous. The tree-toad that we have around here, the common tree-toad, is of a beautiful delicate green hue on the back and yellowish-white on the belly.”[280]
CHAPTER XXXVTHE BATRACHIANS
American Tree ToadAmerican Tree Toad“I have kept until the last the ugliest and the least esteemed of our helpers, the toad. With it must be classed the frog and the tree-toad because of their close resemblance to it in form and, still more, because of the similar change all three undergo in developing from the egg to the full-grown animal. Common language gives the name of reptile, from a Latin word meaning to creep or crawl, to the snake and the toad, the lizard and the frog, and all similar hairless animals having either no legs at all or very short ones and crawling on the stomach. Science, however, makes a difference; it limits the name reptile to the snake, the lizard, and other animals having a scaly skin and hatching from the egg in the form they are to keep; and it gives the name batrachian (from the Greekbatrachos, a frog) to the toad, frog, tree-toad, and some others, which[274]have a naked skin and whose first shape gives place later to a different one. Reptiles do not undergo a complete change; batrachians do. Just as the butterfly is first a caterpillar, quite different in structure, its way of living, and its diet from what it finally becomes in its perfect state, so the toad, the frog, and the tree-toad begin their existence as tadpoles with none of the structure and habits they are finally to have.“Tadpole or big-head, that is the word to indicate the batrachian in its transitory state. A very large head merging into a plump stomach that ends abruptly in a flat tail—such is the animal in the beginning. It has no limbs, no organs of locomotion unless it be the tail, which whips the water to push the creature forward and serves as oar and rudder at the same time. The toad tadpole is small and entirely black; the frog tadpole is much larger, silvery on the belly and grayish on the back. All tadpoles inhabit still waters, as ponds or pools warmed by the sun; but for toad tadpoles even shallow puddles or wagon-ruts with a few inches of rain will suffice, where they can gather in black rows or stretch themselves flat on the stomach in the tepid mud at the water’s edge. Frog tadpoles, however, thrive best in ponds of some extent, with various water-plants and sufficient depth for diving and swimming. Like fish, tadpoles breathe the air that is in water; and like them, also, they die if kept out of water a short time. Thus they are real fish as far as breathing is concerned. But in their final form batrachians[275]breathe atmospheric air and die of suffocation in water. They are land animals in that state, and breathe like other land animals.“You have very often seen frogs and toads in the water, and no doubt you think they could live there indefinitely. Undeceive yourselves: they go to the water only to lay their eggs or to escape from some danger or to bathe in hot weather, but they could not remain under water any length of time without dying. They have to come up at intervals to breathe, which they do by getting at least the nostrils out. Here we have a difference between the tadpole and the full-grown batrachian, between the larva, so to speak, and the creature at its maturity: the tadpole lives in water and perishes in the air, whereas the frog that comes from it lives in the air and perishes in water.Hylaplesia TinctoriaHylaplesia Tinctoria(A frog-like toad of tropical America)“And there is a still further difference: the tadpole lives exclusively on vegetable matter, its mouth is equipped with a sort of small horny beak to browse the foliage of water-plants, and in its big belly it has a very long intestine coiled about several times so as to prolong the passage of the food through the body and thus make sure that all the juices it may contain are extracted. The mature batrachian exchanges this horny beak for real jaws furnished with irregularities that serve as teeth, it[276]lives solely on an animal diet, especially on insects, and its intestine is short because the food it eats is easy of digestion and readily yields what nourishment it contains.“To turn a tadpole into a frog or a toad it is not enough to change its respiratory and digestive organs; new organs form, organs of which there was not the least sign when the creature was hatched, while still others disappear without leaving any trace. The tadpole is born absolutely without legs. After a while the hind legs appear, later come the fore legs, and still later the tail shrinks and vanishes.”“I remember seeing tadpoles,” said Jules, “some with two legs, some with four; but every one of them had a tail.”“When the tail has disappeared the animal is no longer a tadpole, but a young toad or frog.”“Does the tail come off itself, or does the animal pull it off?” Emile inquired with eager interest.“Neither the one nor the other. The tail is too valuable when the change takes place to be thrown away in that reckless fashion. It contains a store of material suitable for making something else in the bodily organism. When the legs begin to put forth, when the organs of digestion and those of respiration begin to take a new form, these new creations, these transformations, require material with which to build. Fleshy substance is needed for the up-building of the body just as bricks and mortar are needed for the construction of the house. Of course[277]the tadpole eats to make flesh and to provide a reserve for the work of transformation; but this method of accumulation is slow, and therefore, to save time, the organs useless to the future animal are destroyed, bit by bit, and their material is used in the construction of new parts. It is thus that the tail disappears. The blood circulating through it gradually eats it away, dissolves it, as we might say, at the proper time and carries elsewhere the fluid substance, which, turned again into flesh, helps to form the legs or other parts of the remodeled organism.”“What a deal of economy in getting rid of a tadpole’s tail!” exclaimed Emile. “Not a particle of it, even if no bigger than a pin’s head, must be thrown away, for it might be used to make the little toe on one of the feet.”“Yes, my boy, a wonderful economy, an economy careful of every atom of matter in order that life, the divine worker, may not fail to have at its disposal, undiminished by waste, the resources committed to its keeping by the Creator for works that are unceasingly being destroyed and then restored on a new plan.“I should add here that certain batrachians keep the tail as long as they live. To this class belong the salamanders, one species of which, the terrestrial or land salamander, is extremely ugly. In form it is half-way between a toad and a lizard, and its color is black with large bright-yellow spots. It is from one to two decimeters long. It haunts damp places[278]near springs and eats insects and earthworms. Despite its repulsive appearance it is perfectly harmless.“The tadpole of the salamander breathes through fine tuft-like appendages which spread out in the water on each side of the neck. These tufts are called gills, and they correspond to the fish’s breathing organs or gills, which are likewise situated on each side of the neck under the tiny flap commonly called the ear. Tadpoles of the frog and the toad have, for the first few days, fringed gills floating out freely; but in a short time they are drawn in under the skin and become invisible like the gills of fish.“Frogs have a slender form not devoid of a certain grace. Their hind legs are very long and powerful, being especially good at jumping, the frog’s customary mode of progress. First gathering itself together, the animal suddenly relaxes like a spring and throws itself forward by a vigorous thrust of the thighs. The hind toes are very markedly webbed; in other words, they are united by a membrane as are the toes of swimming birds, the duck in particular. This arrangement of the toes so as to form a broad paddle or oar, together with the suppleness of the hind legs, which are alternately drawn up against the sides and then forcibly extended, makes the frog an expert swimmer.“The common or green frog is spotted with black on a green background, and it has three yellowish stripes on the back, the belly also being yellow. It abounds on the banks of all still waters, and to it we[279]owe the noisy croaking that comes from every ditch on a summer evening.“The red frog is spotted with black on a reddish background, and is easily recognizable by the black stripe running from the eye over the ear. It likes cool places such as damp meadows and fields and underbrush. It is less fond of the water than the one just named, and it croaks much less.“Both live on live prey, as for example aquatic larvæ, worms, flies and other insects, and snails, and they never touch vegetable matter; therefore they are good helpers in our gardens.“Tree-toads—or, less correctly, tree-frogs—differ from ordinary frogs in having viscous cushions at the end of their toes, which enable them to climb trees, where they hunt insects. They stay all summer in the foliage and go to the water only to lay their eggs. Their cry, which gains force from a sort of pocket that shows plainly under the throat, is very loud and raucous. The tree-toad that we have around here, the common tree-toad, is of a beautiful delicate green hue on the back and yellowish-white on the belly.”[280]
American Tree ToadAmerican Tree Toad
American Tree Toad
“I have kept until the last the ugliest and the least esteemed of our helpers, the toad. With it must be classed the frog and the tree-toad because of their close resemblance to it in form and, still more, because of the similar change all three undergo in developing from the egg to the full-grown animal. Common language gives the name of reptile, from a Latin word meaning to creep or crawl, to the snake and the toad, the lizard and the frog, and all similar hairless animals having either no legs at all or very short ones and crawling on the stomach. Science, however, makes a difference; it limits the name reptile to the snake, the lizard, and other animals having a scaly skin and hatching from the egg in the form they are to keep; and it gives the name batrachian (from the Greekbatrachos, a frog) to the toad, frog, tree-toad, and some others, which[274]have a naked skin and whose first shape gives place later to a different one. Reptiles do not undergo a complete change; batrachians do. Just as the butterfly is first a caterpillar, quite different in structure, its way of living, and its diet from what it finally becomes in its perfect state, so the toad, the frog, and the tree-toad begin their existence as tadpoles with none of the structure and habits they are finally to have.
“Tadpole or big-head, that is the word to indicate the batrachian in its transitory state. A very large head merging into a plump stomach that ends abruptly in a flat tail—such is the animal in the beginning. It has no limbs, no organs of locomotion unless it be the tail, which whips the water to push the creature forward and serves as oar and rudder at the same time. The toad tadpole is small and entirely black; the frog tadpole is much larger, silvery on the belly and grayish on the back. All tadpoles inhabit still waters, as ponds or pools warmed by the sun; but for toad tadpoles even shallow puddles or wagon-ruts with a few inches of rain will suffice, where they can gather in black rows or stretch themselves flat on the stomach in the tepid mud at the water’s edge. Frog tadpoles, however, thrive best in ponds of some extent, with various water-plants and sufficient depth for diving and swimming. Like fish, tadpoles breathe the air that is in water; and like them, also, they die if kept out of water a short time. Thus they are real fish as far as breathing is concerned. But in their final form batrachians[275]breathe atmospheric air and die of suffocation in water. They are land animals in that state, and breathe like other land animals.
“You have very often seen frogs and toads in the water, and no doubt you think they could live there indefinitely. Undeceive yourselves: they go to the water only to lay their eggs or to escape from some danger or to bathe in hot weather, but they could not remain under water any length of time without dying. They have to come up at intervals to breathe, which they do by getting at least the nostrils out. Here we have a difference between the tadpole and the full-grown batrachian, between the larva, so to speak, and the creature at its maturity: the tadpole lives in water and perishes in the air, whereas the frog that comes from it lives in the air and perishes in water.
Hylaplesia TinctoriaHylaplesia Tinctoria(A frog-like toad of tropical America)
Hylaplesia Tinctoria
(A frog-like toad of tropical America)
“And there is a still further difference: the tadpole lives exclusively on vegetable matter, its mouth is equipped with a sort of small horny beak to browse the foliage of water-plants, and in its big belly it has a very long intestine coiled about several times so as to prolong the passage of the food through the body and thus make sure that all the juices it may contain are extracted. The mature batrachian exchanges this horny beak for real jaws furnished with irregularities that serve as teeth, it[276]lives solely on an animal diet, especially on insects, and its intestine is short because the food it eats is easy of digestion and readily yields what nourishment it contains.
“To turn a tadpole into a frog or a toad it is not enough to change its respiratory and digestive organs; new organs form, organs of which there was not the least sign when the creature was hatched, while still others disappear without leaving any trace. The tadpole is born absolutely without legs. After a while the hind legs appear, later come the fore legs, and still later the tail shrinks and vanishes.”
“I remember seeing tadpoles,” said Jules, “some with two legs, some with four; but every one of them had a tail.”
“When the tail has disappeared the animal is no longer a tadpole, but a young toad or frog.”
“Does the tail come off itself, or does the animal pull it off?” Emile inquired with eager interest.
“Neither the one nor the other. The tail is too valuable when the change takes place to be thrown away in that reckless fashion. It contains a store of material suitable for making something else in the bodily organism. When the legs begin to put forth, when the organs of digestion and those of respiration begin to take a new form, these new creations, these transformations, require material with which to build. Fleshy substance is needed for the up-building of the body just as bricks and mortar are needed for the construction of the house. Of course[277]the tadpole eats to make flesh and to provide a reserve for the work of transformation; but this method of accumulation is slow, and therefore, to save time, the organs useless to the future animal are destroyed, bit by bit, and their material is used in the construction of new parts. It is thus that the tail disappears. The blood circulating through it gradually eats it away, dissolves it, as we might say, at the proper time and carries elsewhere the fluid substance, which, turned again into flesh, helps to form the legs or other parts of the remodeled organism.”
“What a deal of economy in getting rid of a tadpole’s tail!” exclaimed Emile. “Not a particle of it, even if no bigger than a pin’s head, must be thrown away, for it might be used to make the little toe on one of the feet.”
“Yes, my boy, a wonderful economy, an economy careful of every atom of matter in order that life, the divine worker, may not fail to have at its disposal, undiminished by waste, the resources committed to its keeping by the Creator for works that are unceasingly being destroyed and then restored on a new plan.
“I should add here that certain batrachians keep the tail as long as they live. To this class belong the salamanders, one species of which, the terrestrial or land salamander, is extremely ugly. In form it is half-way between a toad and a lizard, and its color is black with large bright-yellow spots. It is from one to two decimeters long. It haunts damp places[278]near springs and eats insects and earthworms. Despite its repulsive appearance it is perfectly harmless.
“The tadpole of the salamander breathes through fine tuft-like appendages which spread out in the water on each side of the neck. These tufts are called gills, and they correspond to the fish’s breathing organs or gills, which are likewise situated on each side of the neck under the tiny flap commonly called the ear. Tadpoles of the frog and the toad have, for the first few days, fringed gills floating out freely; but in a short time they are drawn in under the skin and become invisible like the gills of fish.
“Frogs have a slender form not devoid of a certain grace. Their hind legs are very long and powerful, being especially good at jumping, the frog’s customary mode of progress. First gathering itself together, the animal suddenly relaxes like a spring and throws itself forward by a vigorous thrust of the thighs. The hind toes are very markedly webbed; in other words, they are united by a membrane as are the toes of swimming birds, the duck in particular. This arrangement of the toes so as to form a broad paddle or oar, together with the suppleness of the hind legs, which are alternately drawn up against the sides and then forcibly extended, makes the frog an expert swimmer.
“The common or green frog is spotted with black on a green background, and it has three yellowish stripes on the back, the belly also being yellow. It abounds on the banks of all still waters, and to it we[279]owe the noisy croaking that comes from every ditch on a summer evening.
“The red frog is spotted with black on a reddish background, and is easily recognizable by the black stripe running from the eye over the ear. It likes cool places such as damp meadows and fields and underbrush. It is less fond of the water than the one just named, and it croaks much less.
“Both live on live prey, as for example aquatic larvæ, worms, flies and other insects, and snails, and they never touch vegetable matter; therefore they are good helpers in our gardens.
“Tree-toads—or, less correctly, tree-frogs—differ from ordinary frogs in having viscous cushions at the end of their toes, which enable them to climb trees, where they hunt insects. They stay all summer in the foliage and go to the water only to lay their eggs. Their cry, which gains force from a sort of pocket that shows plainly under the throat, is very loud and raucous. The tree-toad that we have around here, the common tree-toad, is of a beautiful delicate green hue on the back and yellowish-white on the belly.”[280]