THE GREATER HORSESHOE—A PIG THAT DOES FLY
The Long-eared Bat
His ears are more than twice as long as his head, and beautifully pink and transparent when seen in the right light
The Greater Horseshoe Bat
Hanging head downwards. Except when he is flying he always carries his tail cocked up over his back, as you see it.
I think I will leave the pictures to show you the ugliness of Bats generally, though I have purposely put one picture in to show you that all Bats are not ugly—for I am sure you will agree with me that the little white-fronted Natterer's Bat, has quite a pretty face. I must tell you a little more, though, about Bats' ears and noses.
When we were turning, in imagination, our small boy into a Bat, we did not trouble ourselves about his ears and nose, but we ought to have done so, for there are some very wonderful differences between Bats' ears and noses, and the ears and noses of human beings. If you will look at anybody's ear carefully you will see that in front of, and just a little below the ear-hole, there is a small lump of flesh which points backwards across the opening. It is not much to look at in a human being, and does not seem to serve any particular purpose, but in many Bats it is evidently very important, for it is quite large and takes all sorts of curious shapes. It is called the "earlet." Sometimes it is pointed, sometimes square, and sometimes rounded. Sometimes it is long and thin and tapering like a dagger, and sometimes it is short and thick and blunted like a kidney-bean. You will see several of its different shapes in the pictures, and you will also see that the leaf-nosed Bats, who have such queer ornaments on their noses, do not have it all. Now some wise folk think that the ornament on the face of a leaf-nosed Bat, which makes him appear so very ugly to our ideas (though I have no doubt his wife thinks it very beautiful) may give him a kind of sixth sense which is neither seeing, nor smelling, nor hearing, nor feeling, nor tasting: a sense, that is, like that which blind people often seem to possess and which helps them, poor souls, through their world of darkness. If this is so (but you must remember that we can only guess about it), it may be that the earlets of Bats do much the same, and that, therefore, Bats with earlets have no need of leaf-noses, and Bats with leaf-noses have no need of earlets.
The Pipistrille
A small Bat and one of the commonest
SOMETHING ABOUT TADPOLES
(FEBRUARY)
This is Toad's Spawn, which is laid in "Ropes"
HOW many of you can tell me the difference between a frog-tadpole and a toad-tadpole? I don't mean when they are so small that it seems a kindness to call them tadpoles at all, but when they are quite a good size, with great fat heads and shiny little eyes and squiggly little tails. And how many of you can tell me the number of different kinds of tadpoles which one can find in England in the springtime? Most of you, I am sure, know a tadpole when you see one (sometimes he is called "pot-ladle,"or "polly-wog," or "horse-nail,") and some of you may know that a fat frog-tadpole is brown with little specks of gold, while a fat toad-tadpole is black all over; but I don't expect many of you know that there are two kinds of frog-tadpole, and two kinds of toad-tadpole, and three kinds of newt-tadpole, to be met with in England, which makes seven kinds of tadpoles in all.
Now as these seven little tadpoles are all different from one another (though the two frog-tadpoles and the two toad-tadpoles are not very different), we may be quite sure that they grow up into seven different little beasties. I am going to tell you something about the frog- and toad-tadpoles now and leave the newt-tadpoles for another time, for it will be easier for you if you don't have too much to remember at once.
If you go into the country in springtime (the middle of March is the best time where I live, but in other places it may be a little earlier or a little later) and find a pond, or a brook which runs quite slowly, or even a hole in swampy ground which has water in it, you are almost sure to see a lump of stuff which looks like dirty grey jelly, either close to the bank or on the top of some of the weeds.
If you pick up a little of this, you will find (perhaps before it has slipped out of your fingers and perhaps after) that it is full of round black eggs.
This is Frog's Spawn Floating on the Water
The grey jelly is either frog's spawn or toad's spawn.
If it is just a lump with no particular shape to it, it is frog's spawn, but if it is made up of small slimy ropes, which come apart from one another, and in which the eggs lie in rows like strings of black beads, it is toad's spawn. When you find toad's spawn, you may be sure that frog's spawn has been about for some time, for frog's spawn is always to be found rather earlier in the year. Whichever it may be you should take a little of it (quite a little is best) and put it in a glass jam-jar half full of water, and stand this in some bright, warm place, where it will not get knocked over, and where the sun will not shine directly on to it.
Frogs and toads usually lay their eggs in places where the sun does shine on them and warms them gently, and so hatches them out, but of course they do not lay them in glass bottles, and if the sun shines on these, the water will get warmer than is good for them, partly because there is no other water round to keep it cool, and partly because the bottle acts as a kind of burning-glass, and brings too much of the sunshine into itself, and so gives too much warmth to the eggs.
Some people think the jelly of frog's or toad's spawn acts like a burning-glass too; this, however, is a burning-glass which Mother Nature has arranged, and so there is no fear of its not acting properly.
This is Frog's Spawn When it is Quite Fresh
If you find frog's or toad's spawn soon after it is laid, you will see only a small quantity of jelly round it, but this soon swells out and gets much bigger.
This is Frog's Spawn, too
But I have photographed it with a microscope, so that you may see it a little bigger than it really is. Right in the middle is a Tadpole who has grown his feathery gills, and close to him is one like a little alderman. There is another Tadpole with gills towards the right hand bottom corner, but there is an egg behind which makes his shape wrong. All the round things are eggs and the long things are Tadpoles which have just hatched
Frog's Spawn
The Little Curly Tails are beginning to Grow
Have you ever seen Cook make a jelly? The first thing she does is to soak the gelatine in water, so that it gets soft and swells to twice the size it was before. It swells because it takes up water inside it, and frog's spawn does just the same. Now we must try and think what the frog's spawn jelly is for. It is really the white of the eggs, the black beads being the yolk. You wouldn't understand all its uses, but one is that it makes the frog's spawn much more difficult to eat, because it is so slippery. A great many water birds are very fond of frog's spawn and would gobble it up very quickly if they had a good, big spoon, instead of a rather small bill. As it is, a great deal of frog's spawn and a good many tadpoles are eaten up one way or another, which is really