“That tadpole oughtn’t to lie there in the sun,” said the lizard to herself. “It’s too warm. I think I’ll tell him.” So she crawled up to where the tadpole was lying.
As she came nearer she heard the tadpole whispering softly to himself. “Oh, how beautiful! how beautiful!” he was saying.
“What is so beautiful?” asked the lizard curiously, looking about her.
“That singing!” cried the tadpole. “Don’t you hear it?”
And now that the lizard listened, she did indeed hear a perfect chorus of birds singing their morning songs in wood and field and thicket.
“Yes, it’s pretty enough,” said the lizard. “But you oughtn’t to be lying here in the hot sun. You’ll make yourself sick.”
The tadpole only wriggled impatiently, and then lay still, listening. But presently he turned his little dull eyes on the lizard. “I suppose you have often seen birds coming down to the stream to bathe,” he said. “Do you think I look anything like one?”
“Like a bird!” cried the lizard. “No, you don’t.”
“Well, I don’t see why not,” said the tadpole. “To be sure, I haven’t any legs, but I have a tail.”
“Yes,” said the lizard, “but birds have beaks and feathers and wings as well, and you haven’t anything but a body and a tail.”