The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children by Andrews, Jane, 1833-1887

In the winter he sleeps with his brothers and sisters, with the bottom of some pond or marsh for a bed, where they all pack themselves away, hundreds together, laid so closely that you can't distinguish one from another.

But early in the spring you may hear their loud croaking; and when the March sun has thawed the ice from the ponds, the mother-frogs are all very busy with their eggs, which they leave in the shallow water,--round jelly-like masses, like the one I told you of at the beginning of this story, made up of hundreds and hundreds of eggs. For the frog mother hopes for a large family of children, and she knows, by sad experience, that no sooner are they born than the fishes snap them up by the dozen; and even after they have found their legs, and begin to feel old, and competent to take care of themselves, the snakes and the weasels will not hesitate to take two or three for breakfast, if they come in the way. So you see the mother-frog has good reason for laying so many eggs.

The toads too, who, by the way, are cousins to the frogs, come down in April to lay their eggs also in the water,--long necklaces of a double row of fine transparent eggs, each one showing its black dot, which is to grow into a tadpole, and swim about with its cousins, the frog tadpoles, while they all look so much alike that I fancy their own mothers do not know them apart.

I once picked up a handful of them, and took them home. One grew up to be a charming little tree-toad, while some of his companions gave good promise, by their big awkward forms, of growing by and by into great bull-frogs.

GOLDEN-ROD AND ASTERS

Do you know that flowers, as well as people, live in families? Come into the garden, and I will show you how. Here is a red rose: the beautiful bright-colored petals are the walls of the house,--built in a circle, you see. Next come the yellow stamens, standing also in a circle: these are the father of the household,--perhaps you would say the fathers, there are so many. They stand round the mother, who lives in the very middle, as if they were put there to protect and take care of her. And she is the straight little pistil, standing in the midst of all. The children are seeds, put away for the present in a green cradle at their mother's feet, where they will sleep and grow as babies should, until by and by they will all have opportunities to come out and build for themselves fine rose-colored houses like that of their parents.

It is in this way that most of the flowers live; some, it is true, quite differently: for the beautiful scarlet maple blossoms, that open so early in the spring, have the fathers on one tree, and the mothers on another; and they can only make flying visits to each other when a high wind chooses to give them a ride.

The golden-rod and asters and some of their cousins have yet another way of living, and it is of this I must tell you to-day.