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 batracJws, signifying a frog. But we will speak 

 of them as amphibia, 1 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. 



