Although from the moment the gills disappear the frog is a true land animal, he is obliged, on account of the fish-like character of his young, to lay his eggs in the water.  For this purpose the frogs enter the pools in early spring.  The surface of every country pond swarms with the bright-eyed little creatures.  They have awakened from a long, cold, winter sleep, to find the spring about them and within them.  Life has suddenly become abundant and joyous.  Their sluggish blood flows faster, their hearts beat quicker; they leap, they swim, they swell out their throats and call to each other in various keys.  The toads are with them, and the pretty tree-frogs that change their color to suit their emotions.  And all are rapturously screaming.  Their voices are not musical, according to man’s standard, but seem to afford great satisfaction to the performers in the shrill orchestra of the swamps, who thus give vent to the flood of life that sweeps through them after the still, icy winter.

As though the new spring-life were too plentiful to find room in the frogs and toads already existing, it calls for more frogs and toads; and new creatures are born to share the extra vitality.  Like the flowers and the fish, the frogs, too, give forth new life.  Within them, too, the miracle is performed.  The tiny eggs of the one wake up and begin to grow.  The tiny living bodies in the fertilizing principle of the other also wake up and begin to grow.  But higher life is better guarded, because less prolific.  The frog and the toad lay but few eggs as compared with the fish.  Fish eggs may drop under the stones or float away, and so escape the vital touch of the fertilizing principle.  There are so many that numbers may be lost and yet enough remain to continue the family.  Not so with the frog family.  No egg may be lost.  So we find that the eggs of the frog are not dropped singly, like so many shot, but are bound together by a colorless, transparent, jelly-like substance, much like that found in the morning-glory seed, and which like that supplies nourishment to the young life, for the tadpole feeds upon it until he is able to seek other food.  Moreover, instinct has taught the frog the need of extreme caution in the act of fertilization.  Every egg must be fertilized.  As the time draws near for the dropping of the few eggs into the water, the male frog so places himself that the moment the eggs are being laid, he pours over them, one by one, as they fall into the water, the fertilizing fluid.

And thus the mystery of life is again repeated.  The union of the living, microscopic bodies of the fertilizing principle with the new laid egg is followed by the growth of the two elements into a living creature, able to eat, to breathe, to see, to feel.  In some unknown way the atom of fertilizing principle seems to have contained the whole life of the father-frog, for it can give to his sons and daughters any of his peculiarities, either of color, form, motion, or disposition; and the tiny egg seems to have contained the whole life of the mother-frog, and can give to her sons and daughters any of her peculiarities; though, as is true of all inheritance, the tadpoles, as the young frogs are called, share the natures of both parents, inheriting some peculiarities from the father and others from the mother.