THE 



Oregon 



Naturalist, 



Vol. III. Palesti?^e, Ore^om, Dsce.mber, 1896. No. 12 



SOME SLIPPERY ACQUAINT- 

 ANCES. 



BY ANGUS GAINES. 



You all have seen lizards, those bright 

 and active little animals that come out of 

 their hiding places under loose stones, or 

 old boards, and bask in the sun or catch 

 flies until they see you and then dart 

 away as quick as a flash, but how many 

 of you have ever seen a salamander? 



In size and shape the salamander is very 

 much like a lizard, but it is entirely differ- 

 ent in its ways. Lizards lay their eggs 

 in dry dirt and the little ones, when they 

 are hatched, have the same shape as their 

 parents, although they are of a different 

 color, but the mother salamander, after 

 living on land nearly the whole year, goes 

 down to the pond or river and lays her 

 eggs in the water. When the eggs hatch 

 you would scarcely believe that the mother 

 would know her own children, for they 

 are not the least bit lik? her. In fact they 

 are not salamanders at all, but tadpoles, 

 having no legs to walk with and no lungs 

 to breathe the air, but instead of these 

 they have gills for use under water and 

 good tail fins for swimming. 



The salamander tadpoles are not alone 

 for there are other tadpoles there, some of 

 which are to become frogs while others 

 are to develop into toads. A jolly good 

 time they have together, coming out into 



the shallow^ places to get the warm sun- 

 shine, darting back into the deep dark 

 holes to hide from some passing enemy, 

 playing and chasing each other through 

 the sparkling waves, or hunting through 

 the slimy mud in search of food. 



It seems a pity but this kind of life 

 cannot endure forever and a wonderful 

 change gradually comes over the tadpole. 

 His body grows longer, his gills disappear 

 and he acquires a habit of coming to the 

 surface of the water every now and then 

 after air. At length the time comes for 

 him to undergo his last change and he 

 comes out of the water, his skin splits 

 open, he crawls out of it and is no longer 

 a tadpole but a land animal with lungs 

 for breathing air and four legs for walking. 

 Four legs? Yes but they are very short 

 and weak ones and his poor little toes are 

 so thin and soft that you can almost see 

 through them. With such feeble limbs 

 he is, of course a very poor traveller and 

 could never run away from his enemies, 

 as the lizard does, so he crawls under 

 some loose stone or fallen log and lies 

 hid, — lies hid almost all the rest of his 

 life. 



You might suppose that salamanders 

 would have a dull and miserable time, yet 

 it is quite probable that, although they 

 prefer dark wet places to dry sunshiny 

 ones, they enjoy life quite as much as 

 other animals do. 



They are not very industrious even 



