70 HALF- HOURS IN THE GEEEN LANES. 



blind-worm could " sting," and the forked tongue, 

 both in this reptile and the common snake, was put 

 down as the sting itself. We may smile at these 

 childish notions, but in our opinion there is a serious 

 side to them. These erroneous ideas, as we have 

 seen ourselves, were the means of inciting children 

 to stone frogs and toads to death, and to destroy 

 reptiles of every kind whenever met with. They 

 were thus the means of introducing innocent child- 

 hood to acts of cruelty and destruction, and of 

 forming habits which, in after life it may be, were 

 exercised upon other and higher objects than 

 reptiles. 



The water newts occupy a lower natural history 

 position than the reptiles. Professor Huxley 

 groups them along with fishes, under the name of 

 Ichthyopsida, or " fish-like," on account of their 

 possessing gills during the earlier periods of their 

 development and for other structural reasons. They 

 are usually comprehended under the class name of 

 Amphibia, in which they appear side by side with 

 our frogs and toads. The young of this group of 

 animals are familiar to us under the name of 

 tadpoles, in which stage they possess true gills, 

 fitted for breathing the air dissolved in water. In 

 all cases, however, true lungs are eventually de- 

 veloped, even in those genera where the gills are 

 retained through life. All the amphibia, too, pass 

 Ihrough some kind of metamorphosis after leaving 

 the egg. In the great majority of cases, they 



