When Master Froggie was a young tadpole, some pond or ditch was his home, for he was an aquatic animal; but now that he is full-grown he has passed into another way of living: he breathes, or rather swallows _air_, and must, as he swims about with his beautifully webbed feet, come to the surface of the water now and then, or he would die. I am sure you know the frog well enough, and you may even have heard the harsh croak from which it has its name, as you have passed some damp meadow or weedy pond, on a summer evening. But I wonder whether you know frogs' eggs when you see them? My brothers and I did not, long ago, when we used to fish with sticks in a pond by the cross-roads for what we called "bunches of grapes!" The grapes were little balls of jelly with a tiny black spot in each, and we never guessed that they were really eggs, and that the little black spot in the slimy covering would one day actually turn into a live, leaping, croaking frog. If we had had the patience to watch, we should have seen that little black dot grow and grow, until it seemed to have become a creature almost all tail, with the head and body still only a tiny ball. By-and-by we should have seen legs and feet begin to appear, and as the legs grew longer, the tail become shorter, until it quite disappeared. Meanwhile, other changes which we could not see would have taken place; instead of the gills, which made the tadpole a water-breather, Master Froggie would have acquired lungs, like any land animal; the aquatic would have changed into an aërial, the herbivorous into a carnivorous creature, so that we may well say it has lived two lives. The beautiful little newts' life-history is much the same, only that their transformation is not quite so complete, for they never lose their lizard-like tails, but remain little crocodiles to the end of the chapter. "_Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father who is in heaven is merciful._" "Turn, turn thy hasty foot aside, Nor crush that helpless worm; The frame thy wayward looks deride None but our God could form. "The common Lord of all that move, From whom thy being flow'd, A portion of His boundless love On that poor worm bestow'd. "The light, the air, the dew He made To all His creatures free, And spreads o'er earth the grassy blade For them as well as thee. "Let them enjoy their little day, Their lowly bliss receive; Oh! do not lightly take away The life thou can'st not give." GISBORNE. THE SIXTH DAY. THE ANIMAL WORLD. "_Every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills._"--PSALM l. 10. "_... God ... who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven._"--JOB xxxv. 11. "_Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?_"--ECCLESIASTES iii. 21.