There was frog spawn adrift, tremulous with tadpoles just bursting their gelatinous envelopes; there were little pond snails creeping out into life, and under the green skin of the rush stems the larvae of a big Water Beetle were struggling out of their egg cases.

One may learn much, it is true, of the wonders of nature in the dead time of the year by watching the great trout on the spawn beds as they pile up the gravel day by day, and store up beautiful, transparent ova, of which but a ten-thousandth part will live to replenish the stock for future years.

After six generations the strength of the spawn decreases and the yield of the mushrooms will be less.

It's well we've learned to laugh at fearthe sea has taught us how; It's well we've shaken hands with deathwe'll not be strangers now, With death in every climbin' wave before the trawler's bow, An' the black spawn swimmin' on the North Sea ground.