toad, in laying these eggs, moves about rather restlessly in the water. By this means she succeeds in wrapping the strings about the grass and sticks of the pool. This will hold them quite safely even against a considerable current of water, should the stream rise and flood the side pools in which the eggs are laid. With this amount of care, however, the attention of both parents to the young entirely ceases. They are now abandoned to the chances of a fortune to them exceedingly unkind. A toad will lay about five hundred eggs. It is evident that on the average only two of these can attain maturity by the time the parents have died, for the number of toads does not materially alter season by season. The connecting string is made up not of nourishment for the eggs, but of a bitter mucous so unpleasant to the taste that fish are thus deterred from eating the otherwise nourishing material. This secures for the young embryo a chance to mature which in the absence of the jelly it would entirely lack. Imbedded in this mucous is the embryo itself, surrounded by a small amount of albumen and containing inside of itself a very considerable amount of yolk. This gives to the egg a volume possibly a hundred times that of the egg of the sunfish. Thus, even counting the care the parent sunfish took of its offspring, which care is very uncommon among fishes, the toad stands a distinctly better chance in life. The protection of the bitter mucous and the large amount of yolk permitting considerably larger development before leaving the egg, give to the toad a material advantage. When the toad first emerges from the egg it is amazingly like the fish. It has gills at the side of its neck and swims by the movement of its tail. Later its limbs develop, the hind ones coming first, its tail is absorbed, and it is now a true toad, ready to leave the water.