THE FROZEN POND. 



to accommodate itself to the possible chances 

 of its fickle environment. The newts, for 

 example, come here to breed every spring. 

 They must needs do so, indeed, because 

 their young have gills like a salmon or a 

 herring, and can only breathe in their earlier 

 stages the diffuse oxygen held in suspension 

 in water. Newts, in fact, start in life as 

 fish, but develop, half-way through, into 

 lizard-like animals with lungs and legs, 

 because of the annual drying up of their 

 native waters. All higher life, indeed, was 

 originally aquatic ; it is only just because 

 ponds dry up in summer that the ancestors 

 of beasts and birds and reptiles ever 

 ventured on dry land, at first for a brief 

 excursion, and afterwards for a permanence. 

 We are all in the last resort the descendants 

 of amphibians. There are two kinds of 

 newt in this pond, each with its own peculiar 

 plan for meeting the difficulty of winter 

 quarters. The great crested newt, who is 

 the most confirmed water-haunter of the two, 



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