Mick Weaver, age 7, of Gastonia, No.. Carolina, for his question:

Do tadpoles really become frogs?

A sooty black tadpole seems to be just a little round head with a tail. And he has to live in the water. Beside him, a frog looks like a giant. What's more, the colorful frog has four noticeable legs, a head and a big froggy smile. He has no tail and he does not have to spend all his time in the water.

Yet every frog in the world was once a little black tadpole. He hatched from a jellified egg and swam around searching for scraps of food. He had a pair of fishy gills so he had to take his oxygen from the water. As he grew bigger, his body made some remarkable changes. Four little legs began to sprout. His gills disappeared and he grew a pair of lungs for breathing air. When his tail finally wasted away, the tadpole was a mini¬ature frog. lie left the crater and gradually grew into a full sized frog.