When we leave the fishes and come to the higher scales of life, we see
the same method of development from the union of the female and male
elements――the egg vitalized by the male seed. But there is a difference
in the methods of protecting the growing life in the egg. The fish
simply drops her eggs and leaves them for the warm water to hatch. The
birds deposit them in a ready-made nest and keep them warm by their own
bodies.
The “frog spittle” you see on ponds and along the banks of streams is
the mass of eggs and sperm from the male and female frogs. The bullfrog
does not, like the male fish, throw his life germs over the eggs of
his mate after she has deposited them in the water. This is done before
she lets them leave her body. The frog’s method of vitalizing the eggs
is that of all the higher animals.
When the eggs in the female are ripe for the male seed they lie inside
her near their outlet. The bullfrog introduces his seed directly into
her body at the spot where the eggs are waiting to receive it. A short
time after this takes place the eggs are cast upon the waters and left
for the sun to develop the little pollywogs, or tadpoles. When ready,
those tiny fellows with their funny tails swim out and remain in large
groups until their tails drop off and hind legs have grown.
If you have ever tried to stir up a large lot of “frog spittle” you
have noticed how difficult it is to break up. This is another wonderful
provision of Nature to protect her living and growing things. The
greenish mass you see is a mucilage-like substance made to hold the
eggs together. The real eggs are those tiny black spots. If it were not
for this sticky material, the wind and waves would break up the whole
mass and leave the eggs to be washed away and chilled. In other words,
not one would send out a little pollywog, the wiggling frog bodies
would be chilled to death. So remember that when you try to break up
a lot of frog spittle you are really killing thousands of little
pollywogs――frogs to be.
The same method of breeding takes place among the turtles and snakes.
Only here the eggs are not cast off directly after receiving the male
seed. They stay in the female, as they do in the birds and hens, until
they have received a protecting cover. These reptiles have not reached
the scale of the birds and hens; they are between the frog and the
bird. As we have seen, the frog has the mucilage-like substance holding
together the eggs; the hens and the birds the hard shell protecting
each egg; the turtle and his like have a soft shell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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