I told you that he had gills like a fish, but they are curious gills at this early stage because they have no flap of skin to protect them. If you want to see a fish's gills you must lift up the hard flap of skin which covers them. The tadpole soon grows a flap of skin, though, just like a fish, and this always appears first on the right side, so that at one stage he looks as if he had only one gill, the one on the left side. When both the flaps of skin have grown, the tadpole is really a little fish, and he stays in much the same shape, though he gets fatter and fatter, for about a month. At the end of this time he begins to grow legs, first the hind ones and then the front ones (newt-tadpoles grow the front ones first); but, in spite of his legs, he is still only a fish, because, instead of breathing the air with his lungs as a grown-up frog does, he breathes the water with his gills. During the next month, when he is getting on for three months old, another wonderful change comes over him. For a time he breathes both with his lungs (he has to put his head out of water for this) and with his gills, and so he is both a frog and a fish at once; but he gets more and more like a frog, and less and less like a fish. His lungs keep growing inside him, and his body and gills and tail get smaller and smaller, and his mouth and his eyes and his legs get larger and larger, and presently he leaves the water altogether, for he is tired of water-weeds and tired of his tail (he can swim beautifully without it), and he wants to make his meals off insects and slugs, and to learn how to croak and jump, and to be a great fat frog like Mother. [Illustration] A FROG HE WOULD A-WOOING GO! (VALENTINE'S DAY) [Illustration] "This is better," gasped Bombinator. Bombinatrix eyed him anxiously. Only his waistcoat touched the ground. His eyes and nose had vanished. The right of either foot was now the left; the left of either hand was now the right; his head, subverted, curled to touch his toes, and, in his back, was a deep hollow. This sounds involved, and that is just what Bombinator was. "It's awful," said Bombinatrix. "What do I look like?" spluttered Bombinator. "It's awkward talking to your feet." "You're like--you're like a toadstool," said Bombinatrix, "a crinkled, gummy, yellow-spotted toadstool." "That's the idea," said Bombinator, as he snapped back to shapeliness. "Now you try," and Bombinatrix tried. "Passable," said Bombinator, "but not sufficient curl." "It cricks my neck," she answered. Her head was slowly drooping. "You _must_ keep rigid," said Bombinator. "I can't see half the yellow. Throw back your head." Bombinatrix threw back her head, until it grazed her toe-tips. Then she unstrung herself. (I see you look incredulous. You ask and ask with reason: How came two fire-toads in an English garden? To this I answer frankly--I put them there myself.)