[Illustration: _Fig. 114. Transforming tadpole of the green tree toad to show the rapidity of tail absorption._ (_Change in 24 hours. Natural size._) _HVLA--Natural size. Change in 24 hours; 28 mm. of tail absorbed in 24 hours; 1-1/6 mm. per hour. Common toad shortens the tail about 1/5 mm. per hour._] Now, when the tadpole is ready to dispense with its tail, the blood and lymph and the phagocytes take it up particle by particle and carry it back into the body where it can be used just as any other good food would be. This taking in of the tail is done so carefully that the skin epithelium or epidermis is never broken, but covers up the outside perfectly all the time. Is not this a better way to get rid of a tail than to cut it off? If you look at the picture of the disappearance of the tail in the toad tadpole (Fig. 115) and in the tree-toad tadpole (Fig. 114), you will get an idea how rapidly this takes place. It is easier to see the actual shortening if the tadpoles are put in a white dish of clear water without any water plants. The tadpoles do not eat anything while they are changing to toads, so they will not need to be fed. _Beginning of the life on the land._--Now, when the legs are grown out, and the tail is getting shorter, the little tadpole likes to put its nose out of the water into the air; and sometimes it crawls half way out. When the tail gets quite short, often a mere stub, it will crawl out entirely and stay for some time in the air. It now looks really like a toad except that it is nearly smooth instead of being warty, and is only about as large as the end of a child's little finger (Fig. 115). Finally, the time comes when the tadpole, now transformed into a toad, must leave the water for the land. What queer feelings the little toad must have when the soft, smooth bottom of the pond and the pretty plants, and the water that supported it so nicely are all to be left behind for the hard, rough, dry land! But the little toad must take the step. It is no longer a tadpole, or half tadpole and half toad. It cannot again dive into the cool, soft water when the air and the sunshine dry and scorch it. As countless generations of little toads have done before, it pushes boldly out over the land and away from the water. If one visits the natural pond at about this season (last half of June, first of July), he is likely to see many of the little fellows hopping away from the water. And so vigorously do they hop along that in a few days they may be as far as a mile from the pond where they were hatched. After a warm shower they are particularly active, and are then most commonly seen. Many think they rained down. "They were not seen before the rain, so they must have rained down." Is that good reasoning? The little toad is careful and during the hot and sunny part of the day stays in the shade of the grass or leaves or in some other moist and shady place. If it staid out in the sun too long it would be liable to dry up.