When we have poked the net under the jelly, and after a little struggling scooped some of it out on the bank, we can see the black dots that are eggs quite plainly. The stuff is so slippery and hard to hold that we can see that even the birds and water things must find it difficult to manage. We rather think that the jelly helps a little in keeping the tiny black eggs from being gobbled before they have had time to grow up. But in spite of its slippery sloppiness, we get a little of it inside the jampot, and when we have dipped the jampot in the pond to give the eggs some water, and dropped in a wisp of weed, that loses its wispiness as soon as it can float again, we set off on our way home, planning all sorts of things for little frogs, and making frog tales. Frog tales, the Elf says, are best in summer, "they make you feel so cool." But they are not at all bad in the spring when the Imp holds the jampot up so that we can all see in, and wonder which black spot holds the young frog prince, and which the frog esquire. If we liked, of course, we could come day after day to the pond, and watch the eggs change and grow in the water. We sometimes do this; but it is so much easier to watch them at home, that we take some of the jelly away in the jampot every year, and put it into a big bell jar set upside down, with sand in the bottom of it, and plenty of water and green weed. After a day or two the little black spots in the jelly become fish-shaped, and give little wriggles from time to time, and at last come out and away from the jelly, small wrigglers, that swim about, and fasten under the weed in waggling rows. The wriggler has a great deal to do yet before turning into a frog. The tail part of him becomes clearer, like a black thread with a fine web at either side of it, and the head of him becomes fatter and rounded, like a black pea, and we can see feathery things hanging out from behind it, which are called gills. Until it grows lungs of its own, like any respectable frog, the wriggling, black-headed creature breathes with these. The tail grows bigger and bigger from day to day, and flaps like anything, driving the little black tadpole (for that is what we call it) through the water in the bell jar, as if it were a little boat, swimming under water, with a busy paddle behind. [Illustration]