350 RAMBLES ABOUT HOME. 





sought, they pass an eventless life, trusting, as it were, to 

 luck. Such an existence requires no intellectual exertion, 

 and none is made. The salamanders, on the contrary, are 

 far more wandering and active. They appear to be ever 

 in search of food, and, when lying in wait for it, choose 

 such positions as experience has taught them are best 

 adapted for the purpose : at least, my studies of such 

 specimens as I have kept in confinement lead me to be- 

 lieve so. Intellectually, therefore, the salamanders are in 

 advance of most frogs; but the batrachians as a class, 

 although higher in the scale of life than fishes, are, I be- 

 lieve, inferior to them in intelligence. 



