CHAPTER VI 
ANCIENT SALAMANDERS 
‘Slowly moves the march of ages, 
Slowly grows the forest-king, 
Slowly to perfection cometh 
Every great and glorious thing.” 
ANON, 
ONE of the great steps in the upward progress of the animal king- 
dom was the transition from the fish to the reptile. These two 
classes are at the present time well marked and clearly separated 
from each other; but an idea of how the change took place, in 
the course of Evolution, may be gathered from a study of the 
important group, or class, which comes in between the two, 
viz. the amphibians, or batrachia of some naturalists. This im- 
portant and interesting group forms, as it were, a series of “links” 
between fishes and reptiles. They derive the latter name from 
the Greek word batraches, signifying a frog. But we will speak 
of them as amphibia,' because they live both in water and on 
land; and during the early part of their lives swim in water 
like fishes, and moreover breathe as fishes do by means of gills. 
Afterwards they put away such childish things as gills, and, 
developing lungs, become air-breathers, and behave like ordinary 
reptiles. 
Modern naturalists who accept the theory of Evolution, as most 
1 Greek—amphi, both ; and bios, life. 
