Pond and Stream

by Arthur Ransome

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.

One day, about this time, when we are looking at the tadpoles in the jar, where it stands on the long bookcase in the study, the Imp says, "I say, Ogre, isn't it time we saw the blood moving?" And then I bring a little microscope, all bright gilt, out of its case in the cupboard. We catch one of the little tadpoles, and lay it on a slip of glass, and look at it down the long tube of the microscope. The tail of it looks huge instead of tiny, and all over it, inside it, we can see little pale blobs running to and fro; and those are the tadpole's blood. The blobs look like wee fishes swimming in narrow canals all over the tadpole's tail. When the Elf has looked as well as the Imp, we let it slip back from the slip of glass into the bowl, and see it flap away, as merrily as before.

The tadpole grows fast now, and soon two little hindlegs sprout out, and the forelegs follow them, and the little creature looks like a frog with a tail, and a very big tail at that. And then the tail begins to shrink, and every day the tadpole is more like a frog, and more like a frog, until, at last, the tail goes altogether, and there in the bell jar is a baby froglet, who is quite ready to crawl out of the water on a floating piece of cork, and begin life as a land and water gentleman instead of a mere fish.

That is the way the frog young ones grow up. Their mother does not bother about them at all. They have to do everything for themselves. And they do it very energetically. So that as soon as they begin to turn into frogs, we take them back to the pond and let them go; for if we kept them we should soon have them hopping all over the house. A house is no place for a little wet frog. He wants a pond or a muddy brook, and plenty of duckweed to hide under.

The duckweed in the pond is stirred by other things besides frogs, as I have told you already. The Elf and the Imp would be very angry with me, if I did not tell you all about the newts. For they are the most exciting of all the watery things that are not simple fishes. They are like water lizards, or like tiny water dragons, with four legs and a waving tail.

The Imp has a very particular admiration for the he-newts, and a fairy story to explain how it is that they dress in more gorgeous colours than their wives. Here is the story: Once upon a time there were two brown newts who lived in a pond. One was a he, and the other was a she, and neither of them knew which was which, or who ought to obey orders. So they swam about, and presently poked their noses up through the water-weed, and explained their difficulty to a gay old Kingfisher, who was sitting in his rainbow cloak on a bough that hung over the water. They both asked the question at once. Only one of them asked about a dozen times, and went on asking, and the other asked just once very angrily, and then said nothing more. So the Kingfisher, who was clever, knew which was which. "Why, you are the he," said the Kingfisher to the angry one, and he took a brilliant feather from his breast and gently stroked the newt from his head to his tail. And then a queer thing happened. A fiery crest appeared all along its back, and its body became emerald and spotted gold; and the little she-newt clapped her hands to see her handsome husband, and now she always does exactly what he tells her. That is all.

Well, you know, in a way that story is true, for the he-newt does really wear those vivid colours and that fiery crest along its back for just one season in the year. He wears them when he is making love to his little brown lady. He makes love gallantly— fighting his rivals like the noble little water dragon that he is.

Newts are not any more easy to keep at home in a bowl than little frogs. They grow up from eggs, just like tadpoles, only instead of losing their tails and changing into frogs they keep their tails to swim with, and remain newts. They are not easy to keep because they are very clever at climbing. Once we did catch two of the brown lady newts, and the Imp fell splosh into the duckweed just as he was reaching out trying to catch a he. He caught the he all right, but then we had to go home best foot first, for the Imp was a lump of muddy wetness. He chattered all the way home all the same, and as soon as he had changed his clothes we all worked together, rigging up the old tadpoles bell jar with a fresh sandy bottom, and good clear water, and a floating island of cork, and a lot of duckweed. Then we emptied the jam pot full of newts into the bowl, and saw them swim gaily about examining their new home. We left them and had our tea. When we came back we looked at them again, and saw a very beautiful thing. Two of the newts had shed their skins. You know how sometimes, walking on the moor, we come across snakeskins, like hollow transparent snakes, when we can be sure that an adder has passed that way and left his old coat behind, and slipped gaily off in brighter clothes. Well, that was exactly what the newts had done. There were the newts swimming about, and there were their old skins, like pale, grey films, floating in the water. We could even see the shapes of their tiny feet and hands in the transparent filminesses.

That was all very well, but next morning, as I was getting ready to come down to breakfast, there was a shriek and clatter on the stairs, and presently the Imp, very red, came bumping in at my door to say that all the newts had vanished from the bowl, and that the housemaid had just met one as she was coming downstairs with a can of water. She had stepped over the newt on the edge of the landing, had seen it, and dropped the water-can over and over down the stairs. Would I please come? The Imp held out his pocket handkerchief with something wriggling in it. "You have got it?" I said. "Yes," said the Imp solemnly, looking back towards the door, "but don't let her know." We ran down over the bedraggled stair carpet and saw the water-can under the coat-stand, and the housemaid crying on a chair, explaining how she had seen an evil thing with four legs to it sitting on the landing. The cook was watching her, with arms akimbo, saying "Ah, me," and "Poor dear," now and again.